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Food of Sparrows. 



United States Department of Agriculture, and the results 

 published in 1889. This investigation, which included wide 

 field observation and the examination of more than 600 

 stomachs, has now been supplemented by the examination of 

 a further 132 stomachs, and a special study has been made of 

 the food of the young. For the latter purpose fifty birds from 

 three days to three weeks old were collected during June and 

 July from a farming region near Washington. The adults 

 were collected from rural localities in various States through- 

 out the year. 



The bulletin concludes that while the native American 

 sparrows are, on the whole, beneficial and worthy of protec- 

 tion, their British congener, Passer domesticus, is injurious to 

 agriculture. It is stated that the examination of the adult 

 English sparrows showed that animal matter, practically all 

 insects, constituted 2 per cent, of their food, and vegetable 

 matter, almost entirely seeds, 98 per cent. Insects were taken 

 chiefly during May and June, when they composed 10 and 8 

 per cent, respectively of the month's food. Of the vegetable 

 diet 7 per cent, consisted of grass seeds, and 17 per cent, 

 of various weeds other than grasses, the remaining 74 per 

 cent, being grain — a proportion that rose to 90 per cent, from 

 June to August. 



The examination of the stomachs of the fifty nestlings 

 showed that, instead of being exclusively insectivorous, like 

 the young of all the native American sparrows so far as 

 known, the young English sparrows had taken 35 per cent, 

 of vegetable food, 2 per cent, being weed seeds, and 33 per 

 cent, grain. The animal food was made up entirely of insects, 

 mostly injurious. 



As an insect destroyer in America the sparrow's chief 

 service is in the consumption of grasshoppers, principally in 

 feeding its nestlings. As regards weeds, it is observed that 

 the bird would be more effective in rural districts if it flew 

 out into the fields to feed ; but it appears to limit its weed 

 seed feeding largely to the barnyard and immediate vicinity 

 of buildings. In towns the sparrow was found to do effective 

 work in destroying seeds of weeds in the public parks. In 

 cities also the grain it consumes is composed very largely of 



