Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-10-18
BARNARD BATTLES.
An Intruding Hawk Attacked and
Driven off by Game Cocks.


Meadow Run, Pa, was noting the ca
pers of a brood of week-old game
chickens one day a flock of English
sparrows alighted in front of the coop
and began to eat the dough. One of
the chickens Immediately showed it's
thorough breeding by squirting up to q
sparrow and giving battle to it. Three
other sparrows took their companions
Part at once by pitching into the
SDunky chicken, but the little crea
ture, although it was only a week old,
knocked the sparrows about until they
SQTail,d with anger The chicken was
so spry on it's feet and with it's bill
that it quickly put the meddlesOme
birds to fight. but they returned with
reinfolrtrnents, and the wary chicken
skipped into the coop.
On seeing that their little antagonist
had run to shelter, the sparrows
stopped their noise and began to keep
at the dough again. Mr.. Serum was
watching for the chicken to come out
and renew its battle with the birds,
when all of sudden the sparrows
flew up and went squalling to the OPP
posite end of the yard, where Mr..
Scrums boss gamecock Met was
squawking out notes of alarm i'll his
highest key.
A hawk that had just dived into the
yard and set it's claws into the back
of a half-grown chicken was the
cause Of the ROSTERS noise, as well as
that of the SparrOwS. Met and the
sparrows sailed into the hawk in great
shape before it could rise, and they
hammered it so hard that it became
dazed. In trying to escape from the
spurs of the rooster and the bills of the
sparrOWs the hawk ran it's head
through some wire netting that served
as a fence and got fast in it. While
the hawk was tapping it's wings in a
vain endeavOr to get loose the rooster
ran under the fence like a flash and
started to job his spurs into the big
birds head. The sparrOws continued
to tackle it in the rear, but Nets were
the only blows that told, and in few
minutes the plucky rooster blinded the
hawk, set a spur into each side of it's
head, and killed it.
A colony of English sparrows took
up their abode this season on Ovid
Lanes place, in Ransom. They were
the first English sparrOws that Mr..
Lane had ever seen on his farm, and
he was friendly to them until he saw
how mean they were to other birds.
In June a pair of robins had a nest of
young ones on a cOrnice of the house.
One morning. while the female robin
was gathering worms in the garden
for her young, Mr.. Lane saw five spar
rows tackle her and chase her to the
nest She had her bill filed with
worms, but the attack of the sparrows
was so fierce that she was forced to
drop them, and she fought them off
from her nest until her mate came
and drove them away. Mr.. Lane said
that the miserable sparrows must have
decided to make mother robins life
unhappy, for they tackled her again
within an hour, made her drop her
food, and followed her to the nest,
where she had to fight like sixty to
keep them from harming her young
ones
Her cries brought her mate and two
other robins to the spot, and the way
they whaled the foreign intruders was
interesting. Mr.. Lane said. From that
time ON the ROBINS waged daily war
fare with the sparrows. Whenever
sparrow chirped robin made for it,
and if it couldn't lick the sparrow and
its comrades, it soon got help enough
to do so most thoroughly. The robins
destroyed the nests of the sparrows,
and by the middle of July they made
life so miserable for them that they
not come back.