/ 
'Cl 
Editor American Field : — Some time ago a series of 
questions, by an officer of the government at Washington, 
D. C., relative to the habits of the English sparrow in the 
Southern states, appeared in the American Field. I an- 
swered the questions and had the honor of receiving from 
the official, whose name I cannot recall, a very compli- 
mentary letter in which he stated that mine were the first 
“observations” received from the South on the habits of the 
English sparrow. Now, that the matter of his sparrowship 
is again to the fore, and inasmuch as my observations have 
been extended in point of time, it may not be unprofitable 
for me to condense a few facts for the readers of the Amer- 
ican Field. 
I have watched closely the English sparrow from Nash- 
ville, Tenn., to the Alabama line, in all the larger and 
smaller towns. He is a metropolitan by birth, education 
and desire, though I have seen him in a hamlet where 
there was a large merchant mill, a store, and three or four 
houses. He Is not a pugnacious bird only with his own 
folks. I have yet to see the first encounter between him 
and any other bird, except on one occasion when a pair of 
sparrows and one of blue birds contested for the same nest- 
ing place; the blue birds made short work of ousting the 
sparrows. Frequenting and nesting on my grounds I name 
the mocking bird, cat bird, oriole, king bird, native spar- 
row, wren, and brown thrush. Their lives and habits are 
precisely what they were before the English sparrow came. 
The sparrows eat insects on occasion, but prefer grain or 
food found at the kitchen door3. They do foul cornices, 
and so would any other bird that nested there. They don’t 
sing worth “shucks,” but they don’t interfere with birds 
which do. They are a delicious morsel cooked almost any 
way, but especially so broiled and buttered. They injure 
nothing in my garden, and if they like berries they do not 
show it by eating them. They may become a pest by reason 
of numbers, but on no other ground. My advice is where 
they are too numerous kill them and eat them. N. 
SPARROW. , 
0 KOCUES'I 
THE ENGLISH 
y fot < jUAt . XXlXi ' X ° LZ - g " Rochester, N. Y. 
Editor American Field A correspondent from New 
Jersey consumes considerable space in your issue of May 
19, to say that the filthy English sparrow does not molest 
the robins. No one supposes that it does for a very simple 
reason. The robin and blackbird, fortunately are well able 
to take care of themselves, and the bullying sparrows have 
learned to leave them alone. In so far, and no further, Mr. 
Seth Green is right in his statements. Even if the sparrow 
does not drive the other birds from about our homesteads, 
his presence would still be obnoxious, for no song bird can 
be heard amid his continuous screaming and scolding. 
Regarding this rapidly increasing pest, on whose head a 
bounty has been placed in nearly all European countries, 
the following appeared in the New York Mail and Express 
of May 19 : 
“For many years the dwellers in the neighborhood of 
New York have mourned the departure of birds that were 
familiar to them. The English sparrow, who was an im- 
ported laborer brought to these shores for the purpose of 
eating the worms that infested the trees, had driven off 
nearly all other birds. The robin and the bluebird, the 
wren (mighty fighter that he Is), the swallow and a few 
others came back to us in the Spring, but a whole army of 
the feathered tribe seemed lost to us forever. While they 
emigrated for the cold months, the sparrow remained 
with us. 
“Naturally there were people who thought that the bliz- 
zard would not work ill to everyone, but how it was to 
accomplish anything of good was a serious question. The 
people who live in the country have found out. The bliz- 
zard killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of spar- 
rows, and at once the whole country about us Is filled with 
birds who have not been seen in the vicinage for many 
years. Westchester is brilliant with flying color, vocal with 
chirpings, and the whole country is congratulating itself on 
the return of the birds. It is a great year for those who 
have gone into the country early, and the story of what the 
great blizzard did in adding some delights to a generally 
disagreeable Spring will long be told to rising generations.” 
In every way and under all circumstances that the spar- 
row has been tried he has been found wanting, and every 
man who owns a gun, or by any other means can reduce 
the sparrows’ polygamous ranks should assist in his exter- 
mination. G. H. E. 
Tuxedo Park, N. Y. 
Editor American Field : — Some few years ago, when 
connected with a nobleman’s estate in the North of England, 
owing to the enormous damage done to grain crops, par- 
ticularly wheat and oats, I organized a club for the ex- 
termination of the sparrow in that district.. The warfare 
was carried on two seasons, and during that time over 15,- 
000 sparrows were killed within a radius of five miles, and 
1 can assure you we made a very small hole in their ranks. 
I have seen whole fields of wheat picked clean by them 
and nothing but straw left. They are also death on goose- 
berry trees, taking both the berry and leaf when forming. 
The sparrow feeds Its young on insects for the first five 
days only. The only birds they interfere with are the 
swallows and swifts ; they will drive these out of their nests 
under the eaves and breed there themselves. I have seen 
them bundle both old and young out very quickly. I no- 
tice they are making a firm footing in this district, and they 
should be exterminated at once, ere too late. 
I. W. E. Clarke. 
Baltimore, Md. 
Editor American Field My observation of the En- 
glish sparrow in Maryland has been that it destroys the 
nests of all song birds, that build near dwellings, such as 
wrens, blue birds, all small song birds, and also those of 
tame pigeons. At my country home in Baltimore County, 
Md., I had to kill all the English sparrows, to save my 
wrens, as the sparrows took full possession of the bird 
boxes and tumbled out eggs and nests, playing the same 
prank on the pigeons. I believe them to be utterly useless, 
a decided pest, and I kill all I can find. I know that the 
mocking-bird, the Baltimore oriole, and the bee martin are 
their masters, but these three are the only birds that they 
fear, so far as I know. We find them in our grain fields in 
flocks of thousands, and they are most certainly very 
destructive and a nuisance in this state. 
H. Malcolm. 
East'Oakl and,' Cal. 
Editor American Field : — Regarding the English spar- 
row, he, like our useful friend the mule, is a charming 
bird and to him I owe many thanks for hours of unal- 
loyed sport in the close season. With a .22-caliber rifle and 
U. M. C. shot cartridges, I try to encourage him and j his 
mate, in their frantic efforts to fill the air with rasping 
twitters and the eaves of my house with litter. On with the 
crusade against this foreign intruder, who does drive away 
our native songsters and does not destroy insects. 
S. I. K., Jr. 
