THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
343 
The Black-throated Bunting (. Enspiza americana) is abundant in the West, 
but rarely found east of the Alleghanies. As soon as it arrives from the South 
in the spring, it immediately begins building, generally lacing together the tops 
of long grasses and making its nest thereon, though it is sometimes known to 
build in rose-bushes and other low branches. During the summer this bird 
destroys immense numbers • of caterpillars, canker-worms, and other harmful 
insects. It may be easily known by its notes, which are, chip-chip che-che-che, the 
two first syllables being uttered between pauses, and the last three rapidly. 
The Fox-colored Sparrow (. Passerella iliaca ) is plentiful in the Northern 
and Western States, though it is not known to breed in this country. It is 
found in flocks of a dozen, usualty haunting the outskirts of thickets and moist 
woods. They breed in the north of British America, and at this season the male 
takes on a gaudy plumage of cardinal, and develops a charming voice. It 
nests upon the ground and lays five eggs of a pale green tint, blotched with 
brown. Their food is insects and seed, and they imitate our domestic fowls, 
scratching the ground to uncover insects, seeds or other food. 
The English Sparrow ( Passer domesticus ) is at once the most numerous 
and despised bird to be found in America. Though abounding in great 
numbers in every city and town of the 
United States, it is an importation from 
Europe, first brought over about thirty 
years ago in the belief that it would 
perform most useful service towards 
exterminating tree caterpillars. Sev¬ 
eral pairs were also taken to Australia 
about the same time, under a similar 
fallacy. In former years the sparrow 
was no doubt almost strictly insecti¬ 
vorous, but in the development of na¬ 
ture, which produces many changes, 
its appetite is no longer that of an 
insect devourer. No other bird re¬ 
produces so rapidly, since the sparrows lay from five to six eggs at each sitting, 
and raise three broods each year. This remarkable fecundity has produced results 
most annoying, which, added to its predaceous, audacious, and rapacious disposition, 
make it a proper subject for our animadversions. Australia has tried to destroy 
or reduce the number of sparrows by offering rewards for their heads and eggs; 
America will soon have to adopt similar measures, or the depredations of these 
already innumerable and rapidly multiplying pests will be incalculable. Against 
the sparrow I must prefer many serious charges: He builds under the eaves 
of our houses and chokes up our waterspouts with his nests, befouls the roofs, 
porches, walks and window-sills, litters up our yards, devours our flower seeds, 
plucks the ripening oats and wheat, keeps up a perpetual charivari about our 
doors, and makes himself an intolerable nuisance without exhibiting one 
redeeming trait. But to these charges I must add another, much more serious: 
He is not only savagely pugnacious, fighting among his own species, but he 
is a foe to all of our pretty, useful and singing birds, not only assaulting the 
parent birds, but destroying their eggs and murdering their young. This 
latter charge I make upon evidence that cannot be refuted: In the summer of 
SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER-BIRD. 
