Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-03-19
A FEAThERY NUISANCE.
Some Reflections on the Cheeky Enrliah
Sparrow.

AhS"'ASh.iiAS gentleman VINO 1atnere0
the importation of English sparrows to
this country for the purpose of turn
ing them loose on the canker-worms
which infested the trees and thence
dropped casually down the citizens
back. lived long enough to regret his
miserable ignorance. For awhile the
sparrows were both hungry and peace.
able. and buckled down to housekeep.
ing and canker-worms with a zeal
which made the scientific gentleman
both glad and proud. The city built
sparrow-houses in the trees, and the
newspapers pulled and gloritied the
city's feathered guests there was in
tense excitement n morning in Madi-
son Square over the report, confirmed
by several unimpeachable witnesses,
that Il sparrow had actually been seen
to devour a caterpillar-at least, it was
supposed to have been a caterpillar
people said how real nice it was to see
the cunning little birds hop about and
eat worms and hear them twitter, and
everybody felt that a great and glori-
Gus thing had been done, and COM
plimented and congratulated the scien-
titic gentleman until he got to be so
naughty you couldn't think.
At the end Of four years each spar
row OF the originalimmigrant batch had
become a Observation-Disclosures. and
had lived to see his descendants ali set
tied. naturalized, married, and full of
cankcr-worms and prosperity. Then.
do you think the old sparrows grew
feeble with advancing years, and called
their loving families about them and
twittcred a tender farewell and told
them to be good sparrows and fulfill
their mission, always bear in mind the
duty they owed to the whole-soulcd cap
italists who had brought them over the
sea? And did the infant sparrows
promise they would, and brace up and
lay the good advice of their ancestors
to heart, and afterthe sadfuneral gath
err together and VOW that they never
would rest while a canker-worm was
alive? Not a bit Of it. The old birds
didn't die and didn't propose to die,
but grew tougher and tougher each
year, and went in more for thrashing
their children than for giving them adj
vice. and rs for fulfilling their mission,
they simply made up their minds that
the ~cankerworm business was all stuff
and nonsense. and no sparrow in his
right mind was going to spend three
hours rummaging for breakfast bugsin
the park so long as there were plenty
Of refuse barrels and surface railroads
in town.
1t didn't take the sparrows long to
flnd out that caterpillars as an article
of steady diet We're not suited to the
pampered appetitcs they acquired in the
new world. and so they proceeded to
ignore the crawlers and devote them
selves to refuse with a shameful energy
which amazed the contiding public and
sent the scientific gentleman to his
grave with Il broken heart.
But the birds multiplied and waxed
fat and fell into city ways, and los,
their British timidity, and got finally
to thinking they had been sent for to
run the town. The trees were full OF
them, and the grass thick with them.
and they swarmed all over the city and
made tenemcnts wherever Il cornice or
q molding afforded the slightest shelter
or foothold. They Matched broods in
unfinished chimncys and nestled in
legions in the bclfry of Old Trinity,
made the life of every robin and lin
net in the park Il burden to him, and
sent delegates to COLOMBO every city in
the Union. The result has been that in
fifteen brief years they have acquired
a clear title to the entire country from
Portland to Galveston, and between
them and the millincrs the birds of
merry song and gay feather have van
ished forever.
Saucy. Independent, devil-may-care
rascals are they, asking and giving no
quarter. and having but two occupa-
tions-feeding and free fight. When
Il sparrow has eaten all he can hold he
has but one object in life, and that is to
wallop his neighbor or get %walloped.
The result is that he is in Il state of
perpetual mott. and if nature had not
th%oughtfully provided him with strength
enough to grow several dozen crops of
feathers Il year he would be naked as
a hazel-nut three-fourths of the time.
Summer is the carnival season
for sparrows-plenty Of warmth,
worms, frolic and rough and -tum-
Bile rows. Then is the time they
can fill themselves up in five
minutes. and while away the rest
OF the day giving or getting q thrash
ing, and the loss of Il few mouthfuls Of
feathers is Il matter of no consequence.
But when winter comes, and the long
]icicles are pendent from the caves and
sleet covers the wires, and the flying
snowlakes cover tree and sward with
their frozen whitencss, the life Of the
sparrow is not a happy IL Poor lit
tie ragged beggars! they have a hard
scuttie to keep life and warmth in their
little brown bodies, with only one little
thin waistcoat of fluff between them
and the blizzard. And there are no
cankcr-worms there, no profusion of
seeds and bugs and fruit, but hard-pan
picking in the snowand slush, and they
have neither stockings nor galoshes.
Fancy the long stretch Of black
ness and suffering from dusk to dawn
when the rutfian blast comes shrieking
down from Manitoba and searches
every unsheltered nook and Granny,
| and fills every bone with that dull, cruel
.cbo which the moor and homeless