Evening star., 1945-04-03
This and That
By Charles E. TraceueU

correspondent who doesn't like Eng
hsh sparrows has the following to say
against them:
AS you say, he is not here of his
own Volltlon. He was brought here
because there was a pest to clean up
but that bird doesn't like insects at all
For years he practically lived off
the droppings of horses. nested in old
porch holes, awnings or under caves
After the automobile came he had to
find some other kind of provender and
so he began to eat seeds.
Walk up any of our streets and YOU
will see hundreds of these marauders
digging up the lawn seeds just planted.
He will attack any other bird that
dares to come near. He has driven
away thousands of bluebirds and other
insect eaters.
He does not build nest. but steals
into any hole he can find, clean or
filthy, and produces three or four broods
a year.
Notice a robin eating on the lawn
and at once a dozen sparrows will fly
down and try to steal anything from
him
up in the New England States the
% and pop them as they see them.
The result is, their meadows and fields
are full of bluebirds and finches.
Notice the condition of the down.
town streets in the mornings No self
respecting bird will stay in town over
night when there is plenty of nesting
room few miles away.
THE above also goes for the startling
7 fn1 $o
drive away the English sparrows, but
they seem to consort together.
80 it's birds of a feather flock
together.
Both are tramps and will soon have
to be exterminated.
Now there are many of our native
species that are desirable, the song
sparrows and even the juncos. AS for a
song, the English sparrow has nothing
but coarse twitter when in battle
with each other
I'll take pigeons for mine, even in
town, but the English sparrow is abb
solutely useless. A pair of phoebes were
building in an overhanging wall, when
about so of these miniature wolves
swooped down, tore out their nest, and
drove the poor birds of.
Both starlings and English sparrows
are protected by the laws of the United
States as songbirds.
Nothing but an act of Congress could
get rid of these species, which were
both brought here supposedly for our
own good.
The English sparrows were intro
duced for the purpose of ridding shade
trees of insects.
Starlings were brought in because of
their fondness for insects.
Both species now eat Japanese beetles
and many other insects.
Since all baby birds of all species are
fed on insects, as their first food, these
two species annually clean up many
inimical bugs" worms, crawlers, etc.
English sparrows were after whole
grains from offal. To human being,
it might not have seemed a very nice
way of eating, but nature knows nothing
of nicely.
The English sparrow has not been
the only factor to drive away our ma
tive bluebird. Great storms have killed
them by the hundreds of thousands;
and other factors tending to lessen the
numbers of all native birds operate
against this beauty.
Many persons have noticed "the con-
dition of downtown streets in the morn
ing"-and this is probably the first time
that they ever knew English sparrows
broke empty whisky bottles over them!
The English sparrow is nest builder,
being related to the weaver finches OF
Europe and Africa. =