8Jf The jYittaralists’ CoHiuciidon. 
The Sparrow and the Bobolink. 
BAD WORDS FOR THF ENGIJSH IMPORTA¬ 
TION AND THE RICE EATER. 
The material is largeli in liand 
in the newly organized division 
ot* economic ornithologT ot tlie Depart¬ 
ment of Agrimilture for a series of bid- 
lentins upon the relation of several com¬ 
mon species of l)irds of this countiy to 
agricidtiire. The evidence coliected 
will have a strong tendency in some 
cases to upset widely prevalent notions 
respecting the habits and value of cer¬ 
tain birds, and, in others, to lead to 
organized efforts for the migration or 
extinction of pests which threaten de¬ 
struction to certain branches of agri¬ 
culture. In the later category Dr. C. 
H. Merriam, the head of the division, 
place the English sparrow as chief. 
This bird was imported with a flourish 
some years ago as an agent for the pro¬ 
tection of sliade trees from the ra vages 
of caterpillars, inch worms and other 
creeping things, and has so multiplied 
and developed among its new surround¬ 
ings as to become. Dr. Merriam thinks, 
a vastly greater scourge than the one 
it was expected to counteract. 
Its present rate of increase is enor¬ 
mous, and the new territory which it 
invades is estimated at more than one 
hundred and thirty thousand square 
miles annually. It is essentially a town 
bird, nesting almost exclusively about 
and upon the projections of buildings, 
but it takes long vacations during the 
fruit growing seasons and wreaks its 
fastidious appetite upon the largest and 
juciest of grapes and the daintiest of 
tree fruits, in which work of destruc¬ 
tion its aggregate of damage is almost 
incomjmtable. How best to j)revent its 
further increase and curtail its ravag¬ 
ing propensities is an unsolved prob¬ 
lem. It may be shot oi- [loisoned, or it 
may be despoiled of its nest, but neith¬ 
er plan promises permanent relief. It 
is a waj-y and suspicious creature,read- 
ily learning to avoid places where any 
of its fellows met their fate, while, as 
if in anticipation of future necessities, 
it has, within the last year or two, be¬ 
gun to practise the art of nest building 
in trees. It is, as yet, the most lub¬ 
berly of winged arehitects, carrying 
great heaps of unassimilable rubbish 
to its building place, where it makes a 
huge, shapeless structure, ui)on the top 
of which it sets up housekeeping. Of- 
tenerthan otherwise the lirst high wind 
brings the mass to the ground and 
works the destruction of all its domes¬ 
tic arrangements. 
The bobolink of the North, the rice 
bird of the South, has been receiving 
much close attention from the ornith¬ 
ologist and his correspondents. This 
cheerful little ci-eature is found to be 
rather helpful to the Northern grain 
growers, an examination of its maw 
discloses the fact that it does not care 
for the growing gmin. but lives upon 
the seeds of destructive weeds and lijj- 
on equally destructive held insects. 
But it so times its annual migration as 
to pass aliout three weeks in the rice 
fields of the South at the season when 
that grain is in the milky state, and 
there its ravages are enormous. The 
estimated annual loss to the rii e plant¬ 
ers from the depredations of this bird 
is between -i^3,000,000 and .$4,000,000. 
Dr. Merriam recently siient some time 
in the rice fields of South Carolina foi- 
the purpose of studying the habits of 
the bird and oi e^];erimcnting with a 
view to preventing its depredations. 
He found the iilanters making their 
usual heroic efforts, and with their us- 
