ful birds; but their services in the destruction of field vermin more than makes good that damage in the aggregate. The song birds are all useful to the agriculturist. We cannot say as much for the English sparrow. The best ornithological authorities in this country agree that the young birds while they remain in the nest are fed partly on insects and partly on grain, fruit, and flowers of fruit trees, but that the mature birds subsist entirely on a vegetable diet. Dr. B. H. Warren, State ornithologist of Pennsylvania, says: ers. : Between thirty and forty species of the sparrow family (Fringillida) occur in Massachusetts, and about twenty are said to breed here. Of this large number the English sparrow is the only species regarded by naturalists as being detrimental to the interests of agriculture. The English or European house sparrow, an abundant resident about buildings, nests in bird boxes, holes in trees or branches of trees, in vines and in various places about houses and other buildings. The nest is composed of dried grasses, pieces of string, etc., lined with an abundance of feathThe dull-whitish eggs, from four to seven in number, are thickly spotted and streaked with different shades of brown. In this locality at least two and probably more broods are reared in a season. The English sparrow, as this species is commonly known throughout the United States, is universally despised by farmers, fruit growers and naturalists, because of its pernicious habits. In the spring it feeds largely on the buds of fruit trees, bushes and vines, chief among which may be mentioned the pear, apple, peach, plum, cherry, currant and grape. Different garden products, such as lettuce, beans, peas, cabbage, berries, pears, apples and grapes, are greedily fed upon. The sparrow greatly damages the corn crop, tearing open the husks, devouring the tender part of the ear, and exposing the remainder to the ravages of the insects and the atmospheric changes. It alights on fields of wheat, oats and barley, consuming a large quantity, and, by swaying to and fro on the tender stalks and flapping its wings, showers the remainder on the ground. In addition to a much-varied vegetable diet, the sparrow has been known to kill and devour the young of other small birds. Our native song and insectivorous birds, viz., the robin, bluebird, wren, chippy, song sparrow, red-eyed vireo and some few others, which were formerly plentiful residents in our lawns, parks and gardens, have rapidly and steadily diminished since the hosts of pugnacious sparrows have appeared. This species is more or less gregarious at all seasons of the year. When not engaged in rearing their young, they are always observed in flocks. In the late summer and autumn they assemble in flocks of hundreds, and daily repair to the wheat and corn fields in the vicinity of cities and towns, where they commit serious depredations that are only checked by harvesting the crops. Professor Everhart and myself examined the stomach contents of one hundred and fourteen English sparrows captured in the borough of West Chester and vicinity during all the months of the year. Fourteen of those birds were young ones taken from the nest, the others were adult birds. Of this number, five had fed upon insects, the balance had subsisted on cereals and the buds and blossoms of fruit trees, and on numerous garden products. Now, there is one thing which you will often hear asserted by persons who attempt to defend the English sparrow. They say, "You naturalists will never investigate the food of young birds. Sparrows feed their young exclusively on insects, hence are highly beneficial." Now, I will state that the English sparrow, and in fact all birds, with a few exceptions (we have exceptions to nearly all rules), feed their young on an animal diet. The sparrow is not an exception to this rule. Young English sparrows are fed in part on different forms of insect life, but, as I have already told you, the adult birds not only feed their young, but themselves eat, a vast amount of vegetable matter, and the bird should be destroyed. One of the characteristic features of the sparrow, in fact, the chief characteristic, is his heavy, cone-shaped bill. When you see such a bill on any bird, it shows that he feeds on a grain or seed diet, because that bill is adapted especially to the breaking up of seeds. Now, take a bird that feeds on insects. Such, for instance, is the whippoorwill. This bird feeds exclusively on insects, such as beetles. It has a soft bill, and one which will readily bend. It is, strictly speaking, an insectivorous bird. Take our common barn-swallow. This bird has a bill adapted to feeding on insects. It has not a bill built for the purpose of crushing, as is the bill of the sparrow. Any bird that has a heavy bill is a grain-eating bird. In 1889 the United States department of agriculture issued a bulletin on the English sparrow in North America. This pamphlet consists of about four hundred pages, and is an exhaustive consideration of the subject, in all its bearings. It shows that the English sparrow is increasing with wonder ful rapidity, and is spreading over the whole country, having, in fact, already occupied almost all the thickly settled portions. Returns were secured from all parts of the country, from friends of the sparrow as well as from its enemies. It seems well substantiated that where they have become numerous they attack apples, pears, grapes and all kinds of small fruits, eating and destroying both flowers and fruit in their season. Garden vegetables suffer from their ravages, particularly peas, tomatoes and lettuce. Garden seeds are also largely preyed upon. All kinds of grain are their natural food, and their ravages on fields just sown and on the ripened grain are in proportion to the number of the birds in the vicinity. The English sparrow is an enemy to our native birds. No less than seventy species are reported to suffer from their attacks, and many of them have been driven from their native homes by these emigrants. Post-mortem examinations made by Prof. C. V. Riley and Dr. B. H. Warren for the United States department of agriculture show that the amount of insect food which the English sparrow consumes is very small compared with the amount of vegetable food; and the conclusion of the department and of the American Ornithologists' Union, whose members made many observations for the department, was that the English sparrow (Passer domesticus) was not only of no benefit to the country, but was a positive injury, and Dr. C. Hart Merriam, ornithologist to the United States department of agriculture, officially recommended the repeal of all laws protecting English sparrows. Thinking that information direct from the native home. of the English sparrow would be interesting, the secretary of this Board in July last wrote the secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, stating the action of our last Legislature, and asking what English authorities say upon the habits of this bird. His reply was as follows: ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, 12 HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON, W., July 23, 1890. DEAR SIR:On receipt of your letter of the 3d instant, I thought it best to call for a memorandum on the subject from the society's consulting entomologist, and a copy of this memorandum I enclose herewith. I have sent you by book post a copy of the work on the house sparrow, to which Miss Ormerod refers. If there is any further information which the society can afford the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture on this or any other question, I trust that you will not hesitate to apply to me. Believe me, yours faithfully, ERNEST CLARKE, Secretary. The Secretary Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, Commonwealth Building, Boston. The memorandum of the consulting entomologist of the society, Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod, referred to in his reply, is as follows: MEMORANDUM BY CONSULTING ENTOMOLOGIST. We have no published reports here on the subject of the house sparrow (the corn sparrow, to give it one of its German names; Passer domesticus, scientifically) equalling in authority or scope of observation the "American Ornithologists' Union," of which the verdict was given, on careful consideration of evidence, at a meeting held in Washington on April 21, 1885, and was strongly condemnatory of favoring the sparrows. Nor have we such well worked out notes of observation as those of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, ornithologist to the United States Department of Agriculture, and printed in the annual report of the department of agriculture for 1886, in which he officially recommends, from evidence given, the repeal of all laws protecting the "English" sparrow. And, again, a valuable paper was submitted by Prof. C. V. Riley, entomologist of the United States department of agriculture, to the Biological Society of Washington (this at a date previous to April 26, 1888), in which he also proved the "worthlessness of the sparrow as an insect killer." We have no papers of this authority here, but there is good and perfectly reliable information given on the subject in papers by J. H. Gurney of Keswick Hall, Norwich, and by the late Colonel Russell of Stubbers, Romford, Essex, in a small book entitled "The House Sparrow," published in 1885 by Wesley & Son, of Essex Street, Strand, London. Colonel Russell's observations were valuable and reliable. He carried them on for upwards of fifteen or twenty years, and gave evidence on the subject before a committee of our House of Commons. I have now in my possession a series of bottles containing the contents of sparrows killed by Colonel Russell during many years, and preserved by him as evidence of the great proportion of corn in their food. These bottles have in some cases slips affixed with year, month and day, and number and age of sparrows of which the contents are preserved. There is an enormous amount of matter printed on the subject, but a great part is complaints of fields and gardens devastated by flocks of sparrows; and on the other side much unscientific writing on the subject of cruelty, etc. I have personal knowledge of the great mischief these birds are causing here, up even to having seen a whole field so ravaged by them that the sickle is not put in. I know them, both by my own observation and reports of reliable contributors, to be lessening the number of martins and swallows (truly insectivorous birds); and, from reports from known entomological or ornithological or agricultural or horticultural contributors, continued year by year, I have no doubt (that is to say, there is plain evidence given) that this one species of bird the Passer domesticus is a cause of very severe loss in this country. JULY 15, 1890. ELEANOR A. ORMEROD, Consulting Entomologist of the Royal The book referred to in the letter of the secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society is an arraignment of the sparrow and his conviction as an enemy to the agriculture of England; not only for the immense amount of direct damage he inflicts upon the agricultural products of the country, but for driving away the more useful insectivorous birds. It will be observed that the entomologist of the Royal Agricultural Society considers the investigations of the American Ornithologists' Union and the agents of the United States department of agriculture as most thorough, and their conclusions against the sparrow as entirely reliable. The Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, from their own observations and from the opinions of ornithologists, conclude that the laws of Massachusetts in regard to the birds of Massachusetts are very nearly what they should be, and would recommend no legislation except in regard to the English sparrow. The Board believes that the law of 1890, chapter 443 of that year, has not been enforced, and would suggest that it might be amended so as to allow the use of |