Daily Republican., 1886-07-29
THE SPARROW.
From the Arlington sentinel.


THE SPARROW.
From the Washington sentinel.
The sparrow eat. corn and fruit at 1
certain times of the year, and so the 9
farmer shoots the sparrow. But tor
about nine months out of the twelve,
and particularly in the breeding sea-
son, the sparrow lives largely upon
grubs. of which each bird kills upon
an average some fifty thousand in the
course of the year. These fifty thou
sand grubs, if left alive, would have
eaten at least fifty times as much oi
his produce as the sparrow takes for
himself; but the farmer does not think
| of that, and he shoots the sparrow.
THE ma pie and the jay are apt t. least
lnow and then upon partridge's EGG.
or perhaps upon young pheasant,and
30, a Jealous gamekeepeI, who OF course
has no regard for crops and cares only
for game, shoots them whenever he
can find an opportunity, though these
birds destroy myriads OF mice, COCK i
chafer grubs and other equally mis-
chievous creatures, and 80 repay the /
farmer fifty or hundredfold for the |
trifling losses which they cause to the
gamekeeper; but It'll even the farmer
Ishoots the maybe and the jay. And
this is the way the farmer encourages
|, his friends. lie actually kills the crea-
lures which are working in his service,
and then complains of the losses which
The suffers fro u the ravages OF these in
sects which those very creatures would
!. have kept in check had be but allowed
! them to do so. Surprising that the
shop keepers were 10 shoot our police
because the ratepayers were taxed to
keen them up, crime would instantly
increase to a terrible ext. mt; but should
/. we have any one but ourselves 10
y blame?
~ Now the kestrel, and the owl, and
: 1.-THE sparrow, and their fellow workers
,, are the police of nature, and the far
y mer shoots them; and then he COM
-iplains that insect criminals overrun
his fields. What if the rock or the
Z sparrow should tax him little OF his
-lcorn at seed time or at harvest? Surely
|, THAT is better than losing halt his crops
or more by the attacks of insects
What if the blackbird or the green
finch should now and again deprive
the orchard of Il little fruit Surely Q
q small loss is better than great one,
and we may feel as ured that the IN
sects which these birds devour at othel
periods of the year would have causec
et far more damage than can ever be at
"a Itributed to teathered thieves. we
=, lmust look upon the small robberie
=. lcommitt d by these birds indeed, as
Il i IL mi g cir
~ whole amount which they annual.
save for US by the slaughter OF inJurl
GUS insects. If we employ man I
collect our tents or our debts, we pa.
him a percentage upon the amour
which he obtains. Why, then, shoul
we begrudge similar allowance to TIA
birds? 1t is sometimes said, and wit
- much apparent truth: Yes, no doul
the sparrow and the titmice and tn
a lfinches are very useful birds, and do
y great service TO the farmer. But the
we must remember that for man
iia- wears past we have killed OIL tn
hawks, which nature intended to pre-
upon these birds, SO that there al
more OF them than they should bean
consequently we must kill certal
number of them every year to kee
Be- them within limits This seems
yal- very plausible argument, Out only I'll
mt til it is looked into.
NV Ii is true enough that hawks hay
\ been prosecuted, but, on the olh
hand, the small birds have been pc
secuted too, and SO we have done on
no large scale what nature would ha'
Is, done on u small one. Do we not rel
OF sparrow clubs" and OF prizes
- tfered to those who could produce t
~ greatest lumber Of slain? Have n
w thousands upon thousands OF tits al
lfinches fallen to the gun of the coo
ney "sportsman, who fires at eve
bird that he sees? Have not myria
lof thrushes and linnets and larks be
trapped by those who trade in Gag
q birds, or, IN the case of the latter BIZ
7,c even to serve Tor purposes OF the
Ef BILE? And have not nests been ru
lessly destroyed year after year Tor
10 sake Of the eggs which they conta
or even in a spirit of pure wanton n
40 chief for no purpose whatever? Co
W. we have increased the number of
hawks tenfold instead of decreas
them TO one-twenlieth of their or
MAJ lAt oiAN1 W a.
- would have fallen victims to tn
would not have been nearly MS nun
Gus as those which we ourselves h
80. killed. And we must also beal
X. mind another point. By thus kill
their natural destroyer, we have
llowed the insects to gain The W
AT hand The green fly, and the tut
0as lily, and the wire worm and IN
i9I Iother mischievous insects, are
eed. lmore abundant than they should
.ttsno or than they would have been had
rtsn. lallowed nature to carry out her
arrangements. And so we req
. that there should be more small b
- in the country than nature hel
-. would have provided.
\ See what has happened when on
a these birds, and that perhaps the
Light abused of all-viz. the sparrow
m out been killed off At Maine, some th
prices rice wears ago, a government order v
" "a az g. forth that sparrows should be eA
ssimere minated. The order was carried
MS all effect, and the following year the CT
~ land even the green trees, were utt
RS ldestroyed by caterpillars. At Auxt
:, about The same time, similar o