THE SPARROW WAR. 
ject of more attention from his Majesty 
than the gorgeous flower parterres or the 
clumps of semi-tropical foliage, trans- 
planted to please his eye, here and there 
throughout the princely gardens. When 
the berries were almost blushing in full 
crimson beauty of ripeness, his Royal 
Highness made the unpleasant discovery 
that multitudes of sparrows not only coy- 
eted the fruit as much as he, but that they 
had eaten them all before he could mus- 
ter an alarm, mount guard, and pick the 
clusters for himself. 
A quaint chronicler tells us, thereupon, 
that the wrath of his Highness was not 
confined to a single or repeated explosions 
of disgust on the garden walks, but that 
an edict was published at once ordering 
the extermination of the Pyrgita domes- 
tica ; and so thoroughly did the vassals 
of the crown carry out this law, that the 
unhappy sparrows were literally elimi- 
nated from the Prussian realms. Then 
this old historian goes on to say that to 
the great surprise of ‘‘ his Majestie” the 
currant bushes were not permitted, aft- 
er the expulsion of these birds, to render 
service after their kind, for a strange fly 
next year followed, and ‘‘did eate y° 
leaves” so extensively that the shrubs 
again failed in bearing; and so on, sea- 
son after season, until the king, weary of 
seeing the ravage, revoked the decree of 
death to the sparrow, and actually paid 
out of the royal treasury some eight hun- 
dred thousand dollars in the form of re- 
wards to his people for their zeal in bring- 
ing the exiled birds back. 
Thus the sparrow, which we have 
brought over from the Continent, is no 
stranger to persecution, and the success 
with which he fights for a living here 
augurs well for his future; but, like all 
other people of pronounced character, he 
has decided phases of good commingled 
with much that is as decidedly evil: hence 
his friends and his foes have arisen, and 
the overburdened refrain of their angry 
disavowals and recriminations is spread 
out within the columns of the press 
wherever men can read in this country. 
Now we too have a grievance, but a ju- 
dicial examination of the offense of the 
sparrow brings us in good faith to com- 
plain just as much of our own robin, 
which we have immortalized in song and 
in prose, and many other home birds. 
The sparrow comes from a good family, 
having a host of representatives in Ku- 
Vou. LIX.—No. 354.— 5-4 
849 
rope, and a full list in North America; 
but, strange to say, it is the only scion of 
this large division of the bird tribe from 
which the gift of song seems to have been 
wholly withheld. Everybody who has 
strolled in the country during May and 
June has listened to the sweet love carols 
of our chirping and song sparrows, but 
no one ever heard the sparrow in ques- 
tion utter a single sound that possessed 
the faintest melody—nothing but that in- 
cessant complaining chirp and distressful 
chatter from one end of the year to the 
other—no intermission, no rest. If it 
could sing like our eat-bird, or even the 
clumsy robin, for instance, the opposition 
to it which now exists would, it is safe to 
say, never have been aroused, because in 
all fairness, waiving the question of song, 
the sparrow can not be called any better 
or worse than the rest of its kind, which 
are all plump, sober, dull-plumaged birds. 
The characteristic preference which the 
sparrow has for the haunts of man, its 
selection of the busiest centres of great 
cities for chief residence and enjoyment, 
would at first sight imply that it was at- 
tached to the personal companionship of 
ourselves, when, in fact, it will not bear 
confinement in cages like the robin, the 
redbird, and a score of others which are 
indigenous to our country, and are called 
birds of the wild woods. In this condi- 
tion it cowers and sulks, refuses food and 
all attention from our hand, until death 
relieves it from further suffering. Be- 
fore, however, beginning to speak of its 
many peculiarities, it is better that the 
history of the introduction of this little 
foreigner should be presented, in order 
that people» may judge of the degree in 
which an insignificant beginning in some 
matters may be instrumental in produ- 
cing results of important and far-reach- 
ing consequence. 
The first attempt, as far as is known, 
to introduce the common house-sparrow 
of Europe to our country was made by a 
gentleman name Desblois, in Portland, 
Maine, during the autumn of 1858: he 
brought over a few birds from the Conti- 
nent, and liberated them in a large gar- 
den which was situated within the cen- 
tral part of the city. They remained 
there sheltered and secure under the 
eaves of a neighboring church through- 
out the winter, and in the following 
spring settled down happily enough to 
the labor of nest-building and rearing 
