/ 
a . . THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 
’ ' White Post, Ya. 
Editor American Field : — Having read a great deal, 
this Spring, about the English sparrow, and about their 
belligerency and destructiveness, I have been induced to ob- 
serve them much more closely than I otherwise would have 
done, and am satisfied that the little fellows are much more 
sinned against than sinning. I, like a majority of people, 
was prejudiced against them, more from what I had heard 
than from what I knew. I imagine there were fully seventy- 
five to one hundred who wintered about my place, and they 
are here now, nesting in all kinds of places. There are a 
great many birds about my premises, as I have many shade 
trees. Such birds as the Baltimore oriole, who builds in 
the yard, pee wees or phcebe birds, who build in the 
porches, robins, some English mocking birds, wrens, etc., 
all of which nest in the yard and garden, close to the house. 
I have yet to see the first battle between one of them and 
the sparrow, nor can I detect any decrease in the number of 
the different birds which I have had around me for yearsi 
unless it be the old-time, old-fashioned red-headed wood- 
pecker, whose noise upon the schoolhouse roof was so fa- 
miliar to us years and years ago ; he is gone, for I rarely 
see or hear one of them and I can form no idea as to 
what has became of them. As to the destructiveness 
of the English sparrow, they doubtless have to have some- 
thing to eat, but I cannot see that they are any worse than 
other birds, except that they go in larger crowds. We have 
a little yellow bird and have always had him, who is much 
worse in a garden than I have ever noticed the sparrows 
to be, especially in gathering and picking the maturing 
seeds. It is almost an impossibility to save the beet, pars- 
nip or salsify seeds, as these little wretches are ready with 
their incisive bills, to attack the bolls as soon as they com- 
mence opening, and if the salsify seed is not protected by 
some gauzy fabric, they get the last seed. I have never 
noticed the sparrow interfering in that way, so, upon the 
whole I shall give the little fellows a chance and act 
toward them as Uncle Toby did to the fly. 
Our country is full of Bob Whites, the name suggested 
by a recent contributor to the American Field as one 
which we would all better use, and I think the same, as it 
will save confusion. I have not seen and heard as many 
paira, for a great many years, and as to rabbits there 
is no end to them and the woods are literally alive with 
pheasants. Old Dominion. 
Washington, D. C. 
fo. 
Editor American Field: — You will pardon perhaps the 
expression of satisfaction with which a veteran in what used 
to be called the “sparrow war,” now contemplates the actual 
state of affairs. It was about fifteen years ago that I first 
raised my voice and handled my pen against these birds, 
which everybody was then lauding in a maudlin way. I 
was almost the first to foresee what would happen from 
their introduction, and for some time 1 had the field against 
the sparrows pretty much to myself— to the extent of rais- 
ing the quills upon my somewhat fretful friend Dr. Brewer, 
and being quite roundly abused by all the sentimentalists 
and not a few ornithologists. Mr. Henry Bergh — the noble 
fanatic — God bless him, I say, for it needed a fanatic and a 
martyr to accomplish what he did to lessen pain in the 
world — singled me out for special attack, and made me ap- 
pear quite a monster of cruelty, like a modern Nero. 
Things went on thus for awhile, during which I was 
busily gathering statistics and preparing for a bibliography 
of the whole subject, which I published I think in 1878. 
And all this time people were gradually coming to see for 
themselves what I had foreseen, until to-day the verdict is 
practically unanimous, that the sparrow is a nuisance. This 
happening was only about ten years ago ; yet it was so long 
that I perceive that the compiler of the Bulletin about the 
sparrows, recently published by the Agricultural Depart- 
ment, has quite forgotten that there was a long stage of the 
sparrow war before the question had been settled ; else 
probably he would not have supposed he was contributing 
anything new in the case, or imagined that he was ignor- 
ing the humble individual who had practically settled it ten 
years before he took it up. Elliott Codes. 
THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 
* 
-XXIX . ,1 Wt - ^Louisville, Ky. 
Editor American Field Under the head of Natural 
History, in your valuable paper, I had hoped that the sub- 
jects would be discussed upon their merits, and that the 
uncivilized custom of abusing those you may differ from 
would not prevail. When information was asked — some 
months since— concerning the English sparrow, I did not 
suppose that persons who had watched their habits and re- 
ported facts concerning them, as Mr. Seth Green did in 
your issue of April 28, would be spoken of as he was by 
G. H. E — in the American Field of May 5. I do hope 
that under the heading of Natural History, we can treat 
each other fairly and as gentlemen should, if we do not 
always do so when speaking of guns and dogs. 
Surely, Mr. Seth Green’s position and character, entitles 
to a respectful consideration any subject upon which 
he writes. If writers are to be attacked personally on all 
topics, how are we to expect modest persons, or those dis- 
inclined to controversy, to give testimony on any subject? 
I have desired to give a few facts concerning English spar- 
rows in this city, but as this “sparrow has been persistently 
and maliciously attacked through the papers,” as Phil says 
in your issue of May 5, 1 have hesitated to do so. But, now 
Mr. Seth Green is held to such an account for making the 
simple statements he did, I will, at least, divide the censure 
with him. I have this day seen the cat-bird, the bluebird, 
the orchard oriole, and several other species in the same 
small grove of bushes with numbers of English sparrows, 
and there was no evidence that they had any fear of the 
sparrows. I also have heard in the same yard as many 
song birds to-day and during this Spring, as at any other 
time in my recollection. If song birds sometimes ap- 
pear to be in less numbers now than formerly, the fact may 
be attributed to other causes than to English sparrows. In 
the yards and groves this Spring, I have observed the song 
birds and the sparrows mingling asjfreely as any two kinds 
of birds, and have seen no more enmity or fear between 
them than exists between any two kinds of our native 
birds. 
In this city and in our daily papers, the sparrows are as 
unreasonably abused as by G. H. E. The English sparrow 
was imported by our city authorities nearly twenty years 
ago, hoping they would destroy the caterpillars that ruined 
the foliage of all our trees every Summer, and during July, 
August and September made our city look desolate. The 
verm'n were not only on the trees, but were on and in our 
houses in such countless numbers, as to make us realize 
some of the plagues of Egypt in a way we could never 
otherwise have done. Ladles upon entering church often 
