Morning journal and courier., 1886-07-15
THE PEsrIFERoUs SPARROW.
The Petted Little Foreigner Becomes a
 Nuisance.

|
 From the Baltimore Sun.l
 Several years ago citizen of West Chester, Penn. brought into that pretty borough some l half dozen sparrows 1u the expectation that as they increased and multiplied they would protect the shade trees from the pest of in 1 sects. The coming of these sparrows was l hailed with delight by the citizens. A com I modious box was erected in the Court House yard for their protection against bad boys l and indictment weather, and they were regu- l larly fed and watered until they became do- 1 mesticsted. They were the pets of the people. As they increased other sparrow boxes were put up in different parts of the town for their benefit. These being insuffi- cient to accommodate them, more boxes were added, until many of the shade and fruit trees were ornanented or disigured by cost ly bird-box architecture, or rusty tin fruit cans, pans, and stovepipes. After four years' nursing the predatory instincts of these prolific and irrepressible birds began to manifest themselves so clearly that the people who had heralded their coming with joy began to consider them curse to the community. E'It had become painfully evi-
 dent to the fruit grower, the gardener, and
 florist, as we'll as the practical ornitholog3st, that the much-cared-f for and overrated spar rows were affecting seriously their respec- tive interests. The pear, plum, and peach trees, and also the grapeyines were rihed of their buds. The grapes, strawberries, rasp berries, and blackberries taken. The tender herbs, grasses, and coleuses were plucked and devoured and last, but by no means the least the close observing lovers of native birds proper were forced to note steady diminution, not only yearly, but monthly, in the former plentiful denizens of the town, such as the wren, bluebird, vireo, and chippy, (S. socialis) even tranBi- tory visitors, certain of the warblers, ,&c., seemed to avoid West Chester, and now, at l the proper season, when the migrants as we'll as the residents enter the town, | they are pursued and driven out by the hosts of 'usurpeIs.'
 Nearly all the native song and insectivor-
 ous birds disappeared before the combined attacks of the hardy and pugnacious spar rows It was found, moreover, that instead of ridding the trees of insects the srarrows preferred the seeds of fruit and grain. MT. Warren, the secretary of the West Chester Microscopical society, from whose essays this account of the behavior of the sparrows in that borough is taken, undertook to make an examination of the food eaten by the spar rows at different seasons of the year. He says: ''The autopsies of seventy-fiv spar
 
 and vegetable material solely. Each of the other two had in their stomachs, which were distended with wheat, a beetle. By this series of examinations it will be seen only two seventy -fifths of the birds dissected had
 any insect food. and that in 8 minimum pro- portion. The vegetable material referred to was buds and blossoms of the grapevine, the plum, pear, peach, and haw trees; also some little grass and few.of the earlier annual
 plants" To satisfy these who conteaded that the sparrow is gfaniverous only in win
 ter, when, in order to sustain existence, he
 is obliged to live o1 grain diet, Mr. Warner
 examined fifty sparr@ws in March, Apris May
 and June, and fou1d in AS of them cereal and vegetable food.i In one a beetle in con- junction with wheat, while the food re- ceptacles of the two remaining birds were empty.
 These are facts it would not be difficult to confirm in other and larger cities and 1n the country adjacent to them. We 1n Bal timore are passing through the same experl- ence as the inhabitants of West Chester. We, too, like them, took pains to bring some sparrows to the city in the expectation that they would destroy the insects that infested our shade trees, and we have found, like them that they have driven off our native song and inseetiverous birds, and after talk ing possession of the city are spreading along the line of cur highways and railroads into the country. Instead of being deliverance from insects, they have become a nuisance and pest But they are with us, and will continue in the midst of us in increasing numbers, and although MT. Warner appeals to all lovers of native song birds to do all that lies within their power to eradicate
 sparrows, it is very difficult te know how they, or we, for that matter, are to go about it,