20 
BY TUB WAYSIDE 
suggesting the soaking of their food m 
whisky to make the little fellows stupid 
drunk; to turn our young Audubon so¬ 
ciety members lose with their shinny 
sticks, and offer a penny bounty for the 
dead sparrows! 
One paper prints a diagram of a very 
effective ‘‘sparrow net' 7 intended to 
kelp get rid of the pestiferous sparrow, 
before we set up our “ Spurve-stang,' 
or “Sparrow-pole” with its Christmas 
sheaf of oats or barley. When we have 
poisoned and whisky-soaked and netted 
the despised sparrows what grain eating 
winter birds will come to our Christmas 
feast ? . 
‘Oh, well! we might send to Christi¬ 
ania and get some of the real genuine 
‘‘beautiful liftle creatures, ’’—real Nor¬ 
wegian sparrows to “fly around and 
pick the grain out of our Christmas oat 
sheaves—but they they would soon be 
“passer domcsUcus” just the same. 
1 f we destroy the house sparrow, what 
grain eating birds have we left during 
the winter months? Not any. ft is 
simply a question of sparrows or none 
at all to feed. A few occasional tramp 
jays might pick a grain of oiats or bar¬ 
ley, but they prefer corn and acorns 
for steadv winter rations, with bread 
crumbs and meat scraps for dessert. 
They would not hesitate to make a 
meal off of a sick or whisky-soaked 
sparrow. 
Let me ask, what other specie of the 
bird family would the sparrow hater 
suggest in its place? Any other specie 
of grain-eating bird, as numerous, tame 
and social about your premises as the 
sparrow, would become more of a nuis¬ 
ance than “passer domesticus." 
Certainly there is room for a more 
sane bird knowledge. I am in favor of 
starting a bird-feeding club immedi¬ 
ately, in fact, the club has been started 
years ago and the little fellows have 
well paid for the trouble they have 
caused me by their cheerful company 
during Ihe long winter months. AYe 
will not he satisfied to feed them only 
on Christmas day, but all through the 
cold and dreary winter. Furthermore, 
we will educate the young people to 
share their cherries with the robin, to 
let the catbird take toll from the rasp¬ 
berry bush in pay for its morning song, 
and perhaps in time even become recon¬ 
ciled to the rose-breasted 'grosbeak 
picking a few grapes before lie chants 
his vesper in the evening twilight. 
Moreover, we will try to teach our 
tree trimmers to leave the broken 
limbs of our maple trees to plant Vir¬ 
ginia creepers or grape vines at their 
base, so that we may have food for the 
birds and homes for the red-headed 
wood pecker and the flicker who soon 
becomes semi-domesticated if we give 
them half a chance. 
Madison, Wis., Nov. 24, 1911. 
Aliss Lettina .Jackson, 
303 Carroll St,, 11 
Madison, AYis. II 
“It is a pleasure to report that some 
of the state nurserymen whose premises 
the state entomologist has to inspect 
annually for injurious insects, are lov¬ 
ers and protectors of birds. T remem¬ 
ber distinctly with what pride Mr. A. F 
Bcerner of < ‘edarburg showed me the 
birds' nests in his orchard while his 
young son had me peruse the entire 
records of birds noted by him during 
the summer. Air. Boerner was quite 
