St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-08-01
THE ENGLISH SPARROW.


The agricultural department have
just issued a bulletin of 400 pages
on the English sparrow which covers
the whole ground in reference to this
bird. The facts and the evidence
presented conclusively prove that the
bird is pest, and so pages are de-
voted to the best methods of killing
off the birds by traps, firearms and
poisons.
Observers in nearly every state in
the Union present their views, and
several in this section have answered
inquiries. Prof. Henry Fairbanks
reports that the bird came here
about 1874; DR.. Hiram A. Cutting
found it in Lunenburg in 1880, and
l. w. Sanborn of Lyndonville observ-
ed it there in 1884. According to
this bulletin the sparrows were first
brought to this country from Eng
land in 1850, when eight pairs were
brought to Brooklyn, n. Y.
In response to the question of re-
stricting the bird, Prof. Fairbanks
wrote under date of Feb. 5, 1884, "a
few hundred were shot last summer,
but only a private bounty has been
paid for their destruction" This
question of bounty is serious prob
lem, though the state of Ohio has
solved it by offering a bounty of 10
cents a dozen for the birds, and Mich
igan pays a cent bird.
Of course not all the evidence is de-
rogatory to this bird, for Frank Lit
tie of Kalamazoo, Mich, well remem-
bered in this place. writes under date
of Sept. 6, 1886, 81 have an extensive
garden of fruit, particularly grapes,
vegetables, sweet corn and flowers.
While the sparrows frequent the
streets in front of my house, l have
never seen them doing any harm"
Yet DR.. Cutting observed that they
nested so thick in hedge as to injure
it, and Prof. Fairbanks writes in
1884, 1T works upon some buds, !"
and in 1885, "a flock has stripped
the currant bushes. of their bios
sons"
The Bulletin presents a list of over
100 different species of birds molest-
ed by the sparrow, 377 cases being
reported where they had "mobbed"
the bluebird, 1872 cases where the
robins have been driven away, and
1913 cases where the martins have
been routed from their nesting-places.
The evidence is very conclusive that
the sparrow is a little fighter, and
will even destroy nests and eggs of
our songsters in their battles. Rev.
Allen Hazen of Hartford writes, Il
saw it drive away the tree sparrow
on January 21, 1885, and after that" F."
On this point Prof Fairbanks is par
ticularly explicit, and he writes the
| department in 1885, "The song spar
row and the savanna sparrow,
which until five years ago were ex-
ceedingly abundant here, have great
ly diminished since the English spar
row came The latter are not good
neighbors to the robins, thrushes,
and vireos, and with fewer robins
and thrushes the white grub and cut
worm increase"
The question whether the sparrow
eats insects elected considerable con
fiicting testimony, but here, too, the
bulk of the evidence was against the
sparrow. DIR. Cutting writes, under
date of August 19, 1884, ''It feeds
upon both seeds and insects, eating
the cabbage worm, and the Larvae OF
various flies 1t feeds its young upon
cabbage worms and other insect lar
vac and seeds. 1t has taken all the
cabbage worms from my cabbage
field. The bots in horses have be-