English Sparrows by the Thousand. 
In Philadelphia, on Chestnut street, between 
Eleventh and Twelfth streets, stands an old 
fashioned house, of ample proportions, and ; 
surrounded by gardens and greenhouses on 
three sides. It is the only house used as a 
private residence on Chestnut street between 
Front and Broad streets, a distance of over a 1 
i mile, as all the rest of the street, on both sides, I 
is given up to stores. It is the principal busi- 
ness street of Philadelphia, and thousands of 
people pass by this old house every day. 
On the lower side of the house, just inside 
the brick wall that encloses the garden, stands 
a tree about forty feet high, with many 
branches; and every afternoon the English 
i Sparrows roost here literally by thousands. 
I Every branch is covered with them, and they 
are huddled together as close as they can sit. 
| To count them all would be impossible, but I 
I have seen over fifty on one branch. 
A long wall of an adjoining store is covered 
with ivy and Virginia Creeper, and this forms 
a convenient roosting place for those birds 
that cannot find places on the tree. 
In walking past the tree on the way down 
town in the morning one sees that not a single 
bird is on it, but in passing by in the afternoon 
how different is the sight that meets our eyes! 
As before stated, every branch is so full that 
it is a wonder that some of them do not break 
down with the weight of the birds. 
Such a chattering as they keep up, too, just at 
sunset time! Waves of sound are wafted to a 
distance of over a block, and that, too, above 
the clatter and din of many wagons, carriages, 
horse-cars and hundreds of people passing to 
and fro. 
The curious noise makes many people stop 
rand look up, and they are all struck with 
] amazement at the sight of so many thousands 
f of birds roosting over their heads in a public 
street. 
Darker and darker grows the fading light, 
while the electric lights flash out, making a 
! kind of garish moonlight. Fainter and fainter 
; grow the sounds of the birds, and finally all 
i are asleep. Rain, snow or zero weather seems 
to make no difference to them, for they are 
always to be found in their favorite positions 
when nightfall comes on. 
[ cannot think that all these thousands of 
; birds live in the gardens surrounding that 
I house, for although they must measure two 
hundred feet by three hundred they would be 
utterly run down with them. On the contrary 
I believe that this roosting place is resorted to 
1 by the sparrows from miles around. 
In Philadelphia there are a number of small 
parks, and these are all full of these birds in 
tlie daytime. May they not resort to this tree 
after tlie manner of the robin roosts so charm- 
ingly described in a late number of The Auk 
by William Brewster? 
Be that as it may, this sparrow roost is one 
of the “sights” of the city. It would not 
j long remain as it is were it in France, for most 
l certainly many of the birds would he killed 
and eaten. Here we content ouselves by pass- 
ing off a few thousands of these birds as 
“Reed Birds” (A. O. U. No. 494), when tlie 
j season is poor for those delicacies. Many of 
i the people who buy them do not know enough 
to recognize tlie difference in tlieir heads and 
feet, and tlie bodies being picked of all tlieir 
feathers, they make fair “Bobolinks.” Of 
1 course they are not as fat as tlie real article, 
! but served upon toast they are not to be 
despised. j p jy. 
: : 0) XVI, Jan, 1891, v m /3. 
/ The real character of the European House S parrow is at last attract- 
ing, at least in some quarters, the attention of legislators. While the bird 
has for some time been made an outlaw by legislative action in several o^ 
the States, and the offering of bounties for their wholesale destruction has 
been agitated in others, the Massachusetts Legislature, after an extended 
discussion of the matter, has passed an act entitled ‘An act providing for 
the extermination of the English Sparrow in the Commonwealth.’ The 
act provides as follows : 
“ Section I. In all cities of the Commonwealth the officers having 
charge of the public buildings, and in all towns thereof such officers as 
the selectmen shall designate and appoint, shall take and enforce such 
reasonable means and use such appliances as in their judgement may 
be effective for the extermination of the English Sparrow therein ; but in 
so doing poisons shall not be used. 
“Sect. 2. Any person who shall wilfully resist the persons in any city 
or town charged with the execution of the provisions of this act, while 
engaged therein, or who shall knowingly interfere with the means used 
by them for said purpose, to render the same less effective, shall be pun- 
ished by fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars for each such offense. 
“Sect. 3. Nothing in this act shall be so construed as to allow an offi- 
cer to enter on private property without consent of the owner or occupant 
thereof.” 
While extermination may not be effected, it seems possible to greatly 
lessen the numbers of the pest wherever systematic effort is made for their 
destruction. Even persistent removal of their nests is found not only to 
check their increase but to lead them to forsake favorite haunts. 
^ J,..^ v:;v- Ot, 1890, p, 
The English sparrow question bobs up serenely in one 
Legislature after another. The Massachusetts Commis- 
sioners have just recommended that the agricultural 
interests of that State demand an abatement of the 
sparrow plague, and we notice that a petition has been 
sent to the Boston State House praying for action looking 
to this end. The cycle of law-making with respect to 
the sparrow in this country has been, first, protection 
as a friend to man; second, removal of protection and 
passive endurance; third, active warfare against the 
bird as a pest. As things stand now, the sparrow 
question is quite likely to bob up in State Houses for 
many years to come. 
1057. The English Sparrow in the United States. By Hon. Warner 
Miller. Ibid., pp. 5747) 574§’ — -“The indications are that if the English 
Sparrow is allowed to go unchecked it will not be long before the annual 
loss of grain and fruit products due to his ravages will be in amount suf- 
ficient to pay the interest on our national debt, if not the debt itself. Few 
persons have any conception of the scourge he has proved wherever he 
has been naturalized in foreign lands, and he threatens to become a 
greater pest to the American farmer and horticulturist than the grass- 
hopper, caterpillar, and Colorado beetle.” Aic. 11 1 
