Concord, Mass.
1909.
March 18.
(No 5)
  Late this afternoon, as I was sitting in my
chamber, I heard a sudden clamor of English Sparrow
voices and looking out the front window saw a larger
flock of the obnoxious birds sitting in clusters in the
forsythia bushes by the rock. It did not occur to me
to count them but there could not have been less than
thirty or forty. I seldom see so many together here,
even in late autumn. They have been multiplying
fast these few years, no doubt because of the
increasing number and dispersion along this road, of
large chicken yards. I had difficulty in keeping
them out of my bird houses last spring and only
succeeded in doing so by shooting them systematically.
If I remember rightly I killed seven or eight in
May and June 1908 and nearly as many in 1907.
They are most troublesome on the Ritchie place.
House Sparrows