502° Lneligibility of the European House Sparrow. {|August, 
appropriation for a Sparrow Commission, like the Grasshopper 
Commission now sitting, to consider if there be any available 
relief from the scourge. When the sparrows overflow into all 
the country—and they are beginning to do so already—and settle 
in hordes on the grain fields,a good many will doubtless be 
destroyed- by the birds and beasts of prey; but it may then be 
too late. At present, an occasional stone from some idle boy, or 
an occasional cat on the woodshed, are all the sparrow has to 
look out for. 
I think it will be evident that the argumentum ad Europam 
cannot logically apply here. I have dwelt upon it because it is 
the only show of reason I find in my worthier opponents; yet it 
is fallacious, thoroughly fallacious. The crude asseverations of 
the less worthy, the misrepresentations and tergiversations of inter- 
ested persons, and all the vociferations of the pyrgitomaniacs are 
wasted in a case like this, or are not wasted only in so far as they 
serve to dress up a melodramatic spectacle, at seeing which well- 
informed persons usually smile. The philopasserites may be 
reminded that sentiment is not science, the present being a ques- 
tion of applied or economic science; that satire, ridicule and 
sophistry, however potent in the political or theological arena, 
are impotent in the field of science. 
For the common good, as well as for the benefit of those who 
may care to defend the sparrows, I make the following specifica- 
tions of my general charge against these birds. 
1. They neglect entirely, or perform very insufficiently, the 
business they were imported to do. In spite of some good ser- 
vice at one season of the year, in a few particular localities, 
against some particular kinds of insects, the state of our shade 
trees remains substantially as it was before their introduction. 
Some of the decrease of noxious insects at times is due to their 
periodical decrease, with which the sparrows have nothing to do , 
and in spite of assertations to the contrary, people are still scraping 
trees, and employing the usual defenses against insects, in pre- 
cisely those places where it was said that the sparrows had done 
the business. 
2. They attack, harass, fight against, dispossess, drive away and 
sometimes actually kill various of our native birds which are 
much more insectivorous by nature than themselves, and which 
might do us better service if they were equally encouraged. This 
