Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-02-29
BREAKS THE spARRows' HEARTS.
Novel Way in Which n Boy and n Dog
Earned the Chicago Bounty.

Novel Way in Which n Boy and n Dog
Earned the Chicago Bounty.
Across the street from where Dick and
his owner live is a large vacant lot which
has lately been cleared of trees, many of
the bran ches of which were allowed to re-
main OF the ground. In the rail- grass
which grew up under these branches thou
sands of English sparrows daily congre-
gate to feed on the grass seed and then
perch in the fallen tree tops. About the
time thai the law putting a price on the
heads of these winged offenders went into
effect the attention of Dicks owner was
attracted to this rendezvous of the birds
as first class place to secure sparrow
scalps.
Being without gun he went over to see
what he could do in the way of stoning
few of them to death. Dick accompanied
him on the hunt, and to his masters dis
gust made sudden bound in among the
sparrows before he had a chance to throw
a stone. # dynamite bomb had been ex-
ploded among the birds their consterna-
ton could not have been greater. They
flew in every direction, as if shot out of a
gun, strik ng their wings and heads against
the branches of the trees in their wild
haste to get away Dick sneaked off, with
has done wrong.
His aster turned away in disgust. In
a minute or two he noticed that the spar
rows had returned and started to make an
other alta x. Dick, who was watching
the campa gn with much eagerness, made
a detour, and coming up stealthily from
the other side repeated his previous exploit
before his master could get close enough to
hit them. The lad then turned his bat
teries on Dick, who prudently kept out OF
range and waited developments.
The boy walked away. but Dick remained.
He had discovered a new diversion. He
would walk off little distance and lie
down and wait until the sparrows had
gathered il the branches again, when he
would creep up slowly and with sudden
bound pounce down on the sparrows again.
This soon began TO interest the boy too.
He sat and watched Dicks maneuvers for
several hours, thinking it great fun. After
awhile he noticed that as the sparrows
flew away some of them dropped to the
ground suddenly as if hurt. and picking up
one which had fallen near him, found it
dead. Before night ne had collected near
ly 100 sparro'7s.
After dispnsing of his collection at the
sparrow Office next morning and opening
up uteOtltll Ills lbE II Slliiil TlliS lie re-
turned to his hunting ground. Dick had
preceded him, and he found quite batch
of dead spar-ows as the result of Dick
morning effO-ts. In fact, the number of
dead sparrow increased daily, and finally
the boys curl )sity was aroused. What is
it what kills 'em:" he asked of sympa-
thetiC old Irishwoman who keeps a candy
and fruit store in the block, and whose
sales had been largely increased by the
boys success in sparrow catching. "Shure
it's of a broken harrut the puir crathurs
die, We murtharin spalpeen, We. Can't We
say they kape -hryin 10 go to the brush all
the tonne TO Z It boite to ate, an yere ras-
cally haste av dog kapes huntin 'em
away till the puir things die of viXashun
and disappoint ment, so they do"
y physician of the neighborhood who
has made n study of ORTHODOXY had his
curiosity aroused by the strange way in
which the birds died and dissected several
of them to discover the cause of death. To
his surprise h. found the old Irishwom-
ans hasty conclusion was correct. In every
case he found the birds heart was rup,
tured. Wheth n this resulted from the
sudden fright which the birds got when
Dick sprang among them or whether it
was from ''viXashun and disappointment
the doctor declines to say.-Chicago Times