Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1883 — For and Against the Sparrow. [ARTICLE]

For and Against the Sparrow.

In twenty years tbe sparrow in America has increased so that it is now difficult to find a section of the country from Boston to San Francisco which has not its chirping, saucy sparrow, fighting in the roadway or making a meal from the droppings in the street. They are not migratory, but remain the year through wherever they may be, whether in the Gulf States or Canada. Everywhere he is the same, and everywhere he has bitter enemies and most ardent friends. It is claimed that he is and is not a fruit eater; that he does and does not drive away native birds; that he is and is not an insectivorous bird, and each of these conclusions is supported by any quantity of observations. Sparrows by the hundred have been dissected in all seasons, and their maws found filled with grain or insects, as the operator was a sparrow-pliobe or a sparrowphile. Dr. T. M. Brewer, the Boston naturalist, has been the great sparrow advocate. His death left the birds without any prominent defender, while Dr. Elliot Cones, of the Smithsonian Institution, has been the leader of those who are writing down the sparrow. Many of the States have outlawed the little bird, and exposed him to slaughter by whoever may care for the work. The charges against the birds, briefly stated, are that they perform very inefficiently the work they were imported ’to do; they attack, dispossess, drive away and sometimes actually kill various native birds which are much more insectivorous than themselves, and which might do better service if equally encouraged; they commit depredations in the kitchen-garden, the orchard and the grain field; they are personally obnoxious and unpleasant to many persons, and they have at present no natural enemies and no check upon their limitless increase. C. V. Riley, the entomologist, gave his testimony against the sparrow, and recently Dr. Cones has declared that the repression of the bird is a matter of national importance, for they are crowding out into the grain fields and threaten to have a material effect upon the crop reports. The daughter of Audubon, the naturalist, also wrote regretting that they had ever been introduced.—New York Herald.