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Rochester, N. Y. 
Editor American Field :— Mr. Seth Green champions 
the English sparrow ; it is natural he should. If I mistake 
not, he had a hand in introducing him into this country, or, 
at least, was among those to proclaim his innumerable vir- 
tues ; this, in face of the fact that in nearly all European 
countries a bounty is set upon his head, and that public 
testimony in this country almost universally denounces him 
as an unmitigated nuisance. It has become known, beyond 
all contradiction, that he is not an insectivorous, but a 
granivorous bird. Yet even were he of any conceivable 
use, he is a loud- mouthed, obstreperous fellow, whose 
monotonous rasping voice alone would call for his extirpa- 
tion. The crow blackbird and katydid are musical in com- 
parison. Moreover he is nasty, and disgustingly polygamous 
beyond description, and is becoming more and more of a 
public pest and defiler. Testimony from every quarter 
shows he has largely driven away the song birds from about 
our homesteads ; he is too filthy for decent birds to associate 
with. The lovely song birds we have, but not, as formerly 
about our dwellings ; they have been forced to the fields 
and woods by this feathered ruffian. If Mr. Green chooses 
to house the sparrow in door-yard cots and cages, and if he 
likes his voice and nastiness upon his premises, this is his 
privilege; but it is rather a selfish way of treating his neigh- 
bors. 
If I mistake not, Mr. Green proclaimed the virtues of the 
Rocky Mountain trout in a similar manner, and introduced 
him in many of our streams, tenanted by the speckled trout 
which anglers, with scarcely an exception, regard as the su- 
perior fish. The Rocky Mountain trout is only good, in 
comparison, in waters where the American or European 
speckled trout will not thrive. 
Mr. Green could do nothing better than perch the English 
sparrow on the feminine hat, though I doubt if the sparrow 
would lend himself even to this use, or that he is possessed 
of a single redeeming virtue. He should be given no 
quarter, but followed up by two drams of powder and an 
ounce of dust shot. Certainly, his innumerable faults vastly 
outbalance any possible good quality yet to be discovered 
in the loathsome Passer domesticus, G. H. E. 
(m-., . ■ X X/A . -/' C . t 8, fa ty 
THE ENGLISH SPARROW. , , 
r ' ' ^ AA > I Springfield, Mass. 
Editor American Field : — Mr. Seth Green must have 
a peculiar breed of the English sparrow when he defends 
them so earnestly as he does. I am so used to respecting 
his opinions, and to finding them so largely correct, that I 
am somewhat surprised at the results of his observations of 
this bird. 
It is true that in New England the sparrow associates 
with other birds, with but comparatively small demonstra- 
tions of battle with them. That the sparrow does decimate 
and drive away our native birds is true, even without the 
contact of battle ; it is done by the destruction of the nests 
and eggs. The sparrow is armed with a bill like an ice- 
pick ; he punctures the eggs of our native birds as soon as 
he finds them left unprotected by the parent birds, just as 
he punctures a ripe grape or a hundred of them, for deviltry 
and destruction. 
I write of what I know and see. I have tried for four 
consecutive years to protect the nests of the little chipping 
sparrow, about my house, and failed.' Each year I have 
caught these bawling, scolding English invaders in clusters 
about the despoiled home of the little chippie, cackling and 
shouting over the ruins like so many miniature Comanches. 
This I have seen : every egg punctured, and ultimately the 
nest scattered. I have seen a flock of sparrows, in reserve 
like a battalion of bandits, watch the building of a nest by 
a pair of robins; when the robins left for more material, 
down would swing the invaders, upon the partly built nest, 
and destruction proceed until the return of the robins, 
which would plunge into the ranks of the robbers— a couple 
of red bolts of fight and fire— scattering the sparrows like 
dust. So the warfare went on until the robins adopted the 
expedient of one remaining on guard while the other 
brought the material, but at the end of the second day, the 
robins, disheartened, abandoned the unequal contest. 
Concerning the food of the sparrow my observation shows 
that, while the young are being fed, insect food is furnished ; 
but at all other times seeds and grains are their preferance. 
The sparrow has neither beauty of form nor color, an in- 
fernal voice, is certainly an industrious and persistent pur- 
suer of our native birds, a pirate, a robber, and, altogether, 
a disturber of our native bird population and a nuisance. In 
my judgment the ultimate outcome of his advent upon this 
continent will be a curse, a matter of profound regret, and 
he will be a pest to be fought to the end, with doubtful suc- 
cess. E - H - Lathrod. I 
Editor American Field:— Our friend, Seth Green, has 
a reputation as a piscatorial Solon which probably spans 
the civilized world, and were he engaged in the pleasant 
pastime of a fish controversy, I would willingly give him 
the entire floor; but when he assumes the role of an Eng- 
lish sparrow defender, he can count me in every time. If 
the Rochester sparrow can “eat, drink and be merry” in 
company with the robins, et al. } for two minutes, without 
picking a fight, he can secure a good engagement in a dime 
museum here as the greatest feathered prodigy of the nine- 
teenth century. When the English sparrow landed in this 
city of natural gas, it was announced that his sparrowship 
was to dine strictly on the insectivorous plan, and his ad- 
vent was hailed with delight. Alas, for the blind credulity 
of man 1 The sparrows and the insects entertained such a 
friendly intimacy for each other that they refused to. 
“merge,” and now we have both on our hands, in quantities 
and qualities to suit the most fastidious. It may be that in 
Rochester, the evidences of the English sparrow’s destruc- 
tive proclivities are but hearsay ; not so here, however. 
Time and again have I seen the sparrows attack our robins 
and fight them to the death. Their intense hatred at the 
sight of a robin, that most welcome of all non-game birds, 
knows no bounds. It is an established fact, and if Seth 
Green believes it but hearsay, let him pay twenty -five cents 
for the affidavit of every eye-witness around Pittsburgh and 
Allegheny— those who can speak of the habits of the spar- 1 
‘ royv, and his love for the gore of other birds, from what they 
have “seen” — and he will soon find himself a poor man. 
That the sparrow is granivorous in his diet, is another 
strong argument against him, and lastly, with these objec- 
tions to augment the “third assignment of error,” he is, 
unhappily, a prolific breeder. 
In our romantic Allegheny parks, the red breasted robin, 
in the early dawn of morning and amid the gathering twi- 
light of the dying day, was wont to pour forth his carols as 
though his little throat would split; that was in the good 
old anti-sparrow days. Not so now; it Is the incessant 
chatter, chatter, of a pest which unquestionably should, but 
I fear cannot be, exterminated. Occasionally the robin’s 
clear silver note is heard, but it is for a moment, for with 
that sweet, pure melody, that heavenly songster has sounded 
his death knell. No; death to the king of feathered mur- 
derers, first, last and at all times — the English sparrow. 
I C. A. R. 
