;'•> THE RELATION OF SPARROWS TO AGRICULTURE. 
In cities the grain thai enters into their food is composed so largely 
of the semi-digested <>ats in horse droppings in the streets thai it 
should not be allowed to weigh against 1 1n- species appreciably in esti- 
mating the character of its food habits. Bui in rural districts it is 
Largely drawn from man's supply. There is scarcely a grain crop 
which English sparrows do not habitually injure. They pillage the 
fields by thousands and cause great damage. 
It appears, therefore, thai there is little to be said in favor of the 
English sparrow. Its insectivorous habits arc creditable as far as 
they go, but they arc insignificant becau.se the diet is almost exclu- 
sively vegetable; and while it is in the vegetable fare thai the value of 
most sparrows consists, yet in the case of the English sparrow the 
damage to grain far overbalances the benefit of weed-seed destruc- 
tion. Adding to this the injury it causes to buildings and statues in 
cities, there is no escape from the conclusion that the bird is a serious 
pest the extermination of which would be an unmixed blessing. 
The obnoxious character of the English sparrow is widely recognized, 
and numerous attempts, by means of bounties and otherwise, have 
been made to rid the country of its presence, but with little success. 
The wariness of the bird, its hardihood, and its prodigious fecundity 
have thus far rendered all such efforts futile. 
In the city of Boston, during 1899, a crusade was inaugurated 
through the efforts of the American Society of Bird Restorers. From 
March 13 to April 5, six men were employed in the Common and Pub- 
lic Garden destroying the nests and eggs. Five thousand nesting 
holes were plugged up, 4,000 nests destroyed, and 1,000 eggs broken, 
but no birds were killed. It is claimed that nearly half of the spar- 
rows which normally breed on the Common and Public Garden were 
driven away. In .May only 250 to •'>(><> pairs of sparrows were found, 
while the number of pairs counted in the parks before the snarrow 
war began amounted to 500. 
.Much is always to be learned from an experiment of this kind, and 
other cities should profit by Boston's experience. There is reason to 
believe, however, that the present rapid supplanting of horse power 
by electricity will, by reducing the food supply of the birds, do more 
toward diminishing their numbers in the city parks than any plan 
for restricting their reproduction. 
The amount of expense that may profitably be incurred in com- 
bating the sparrow will depend on circumstances, as in the case of 
the house rat and mouse; hut it should be borne in mind that the 
bounty system has proved to be only an extravagant failure. 
