ENGLISH SPARROW 
367 
grain, etc. In the autumn, it makes excursions into the country and 
visits fields in large flocks, mostly after harvest when waste grain is abund- 
ant, but occasionally before, and then causes considerable loss. Its food 
habits thus are harmful or not according to circumstances, and perhaps 
the balance lies well in its favour. The principal other objections to the 
English Sparrow are two in number. It drives more useful species away 
and it is very dirty about buildings. 
The English Sparrow drives other birds away by three methods: 
monopolizing the food supply; occupying their nesting places; and by 
pugnacious and bulldozing habits. During the nesting season while the 
young are being fed they come into direct competition with other species 
depending for the support of their young on the same insect forms (the 
young of all passerine birds require insects, though those of this species 
are not long dependent upon them). Thus far perhaps they may be nearly 
as useful as the forms they displace, but most of the displaced birds are 
continuous insect hunters and the English Sparrow only a seasonal one. 
After nesting duties are over they again turn their attention to waste 
material and become of smaller importance, whereas the superseded birds 
continue to be useful through the season. The English Sparrows are with 
us through the winter, showing no tendency to migrate, hence they are 
on the ground in the early spring, and when our native summer residents, 
which are with only one or two exceptions more or less migratory either 
as species or individuals, arrive they find the most attractive nesting sites 
already occupied. The difficulty of keeping sparrows out of nesting boxes 
is proof enough of this situation. They are quarrelsome, also, and though, 
when once established, most native species are quite able to hold their 
own against aggression, they do not like the constant turmoil in which 
they must engage when in the vicinity of the English Sparrow. Hence 
few other birds care to live in their immediate neighbourhood. 
The nests are great, bulky, untidy masses of straw and grasses and 
the tendency of these birds to fill down-spouts and load with litter every 
projecting architectural feature of buildings makes them objectionable. 
Added to the nesting habits of the English Sparrows, their congregation 
in numbers throughout the whole year in sheltered corners under cornices 
and porches causes accumulations of filth that are exasperating to the house- 
holder. Today one of the important problems in architectural offices is to 
design satisfactory detail that will not harbour sparrows, whose dirt dis- 
figures the most careful design and disintegrates the material of which 
the building is composed. 
Without doubt the introduction of the English Sparrow into America 
was a mistake. It was known in its original home as a rather undesirable 
species and unfitted for the work it was brought over to perform. In this 
country, removed from the natural checks that kept it under control, it 
has multiplied beyond all reason and though its objectionable features 
have increased, its commendable ones have not. However, the English 
Sparrow is here to stay. It has been legislated against, and large sums 
have been spent in the attempt to control it, but without avail. Local 
endeavour reduces the number from time to time, but only to have new 
hordes pour in from surrounding country when the effort has spent itself. 
Constant endeavour will keep the numbers reduced, but only continent- 
wide persistent effort will destroy the species altogether. Traps, poisons, 
and systematic destruction of the nests are the most satisfactory means 
76916 — 24i 
