Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1882 — The English Sparrow. [ARTICLE]

The English Sparrow.

A few years ago Australia welcomed with many demonistrations of joy the arrival of a few pairs of English sparrows. To-day there is a premium of six pence per dozen upon heads of the little creatures, which have multiplied to an amazing extent amid their congenial surroundings, and ate a source of great loss to fruit growers. Before the commission appointed to inquire Into the matter one witness said that in tbe short space of ten days the sparrows took a ton and a half of grapes. They stripped all the figs off five trees, and kept low fifteen acres of lucerne during the summer. Ano th ■ vr complains that in the season they took £3O worth of fruit; while a third declares that he sowed peas three times, and each time they destroyed bv the sparrows. Neither apricots, cherries, figs, apples, grapes, peaches, plums’ pears, nectarines, loquarts, olives, wheAt, barley, oats, cabbages, coull flowerp, nor seeds nor fruit of any kind, are spared by the sparrow’s, omniverous bill; and all means of defence tried again t its depredations, whether scarecrows, traps, netting, shooting or poisoning, are declared to be insufficient to cope with the enemy.