Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 244, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1910 — Squirrels Rout Many Birds [ARTICLE]

Squirrels Rout Many Birds

Seven of Them Hold Trees Against Thousands of Pugnacious English Sparrows. Glen Ridge, N. J. —A three-day battle between English sparrows and red squirrels ended the other day when a flock of the birds, estimated at several thousand, with a great twittering forsook the lofty double row of trees in Midland avenue, and took up a new home in the woodland between Glen Ridge and Montclair. The sparrows had become a public nuisance in Midland avenue, where the tre|s arch overhead and give a tropical look to the street. The birds came there in such numbers sleep grew to be almost an unattainable luxury on the part of the human residents of the vicinity. For the last four weeks nightly pyrotechnic bombs were fired off in the foliage. A number of birds were killed, but the flock soon got so they Would not even 87 away while the bombs were going off. Edward Bartelow of Green Pond, who was a visitor at one of the Midland avenue houses, trapped seven red squirrels near his home and brought tnem to Glen Ridge. He distributed

them over the trees, and the combat at once began. The red squirrel roba nests and eats both old and young birds, and the attacks of these little tree climbers on the sparrows could be plainly heard by the householders. When the squirrels were placed on the trees the birds had to fight for their lives or get away. The eyes were picked out of several squirrels before the birds gave up and moved.