ZOOLOGY. 557 
They feed together, side by side, and the only molestation the 
robin experiences is that once in a while a sparrow steals the worm 
it has dragged from the ground. But the sparrow has to do this 
slyly, and to drive off a robin would be an undertaking simply 
absurd. 
Then as to the native sparrows. If any one of these seems ex- 
posed to being driven off it would be our little amiable chipping 
sparrow. Before we had their European cousins this bird was 
hardly known as a visitant to our city. Now they have become 
abundant, in their season, and what is very remarkable, they seek 
out and keep company with the European. Any day you please, 
in summer, you may see the house sparrow and the chipping 
sparrow feeding together in close proximity and you will never see 
the former molest or interfere with his confiding companion. 
As for the blue-birds, the boot is on the other leg. The blue- 
birds do molest and drive off the sparrow, and have been known 
to take possession of and keep boxes put up for and belonging to 
‘the sparrow. My friend, John R. Poor, Esq., of Somerville, had 
succeeded in introducing the house sparrow into his grounds, in 
the early spring of 1871. They had begun to build in the boxes 
put up for their homes, when blue-birds appeared and drove them 
off, and made use of their boxes! 
As for the opinion expressed by Dr. Coues that the sparrow is 
not needed here, that the good they do is overrated, etc., I will 
not trespass upon your space now by seeking to controvert an 
opinion so utterly confronted by overwhelming evidence all around 
us. I will only refer him to the report of the French parliament 
based upon the most thorough investigations of Prévost, placing 
the sparrow at the head of the useful birds of France; to the tes- 
timony of George N. Lawrence as to their destruction of the 
measure-worm in New York, Brooklyn, Newark, etc., and to our 
own city forester of Boston, who can inform him, if he discredits 
my testimony, how the sparrows here did what man was unable to 
do in arresting the ravages of the Orgyia leucostigma.—Tuomas 
M. Brewer. 
Fish Currurr IN tHe Orpen Tıme. — Most of the popular 
accounts of artificial fish breeding, and the artificial stocking of 
rivers with fish, state that this is a very new thing. May I call 
the attention of the readers of the Narurarrst to the following 
