6
Spring and early summer.
Concord, Mass.
1913.
March 15
to
July 3
(No 6)

House Sparrows.

  Five or six years ago, as well as still earlier, I had no little
difficulty in preventing the House Sparrows from occupying bird boxes
at the Farm and on the Ritchie place and was obliged to shoot
more or less of them every season. Early one spring (that of 1908 or 1909,
if I remember rightly) I thus broke up a rather populous nocturnal
roost which they had established in the course of the preceding winter
among the dense young pines in front of the Bungalow where they
paid frequent visits to our poultry yard. They have since ceased to
venture there and during last year, as well as this, have made no
attempt to nest in any of my boxes while it became unusual for
them to alight anywhere within our grounds although we see them
passing to and fro high overhead on their way from Mr. Harris'
chicken pens to Mr. Lawrence's, in both of which they continue to
feed unmolested, sometimes assembling there to the number of
a dozen or more. It is, I think, rather interesting that
they should thus wisely have learned to shun our place.