THE SMALL BIRD NUISANCE.

Lake County Press, Issue 1065, 21 May 1903, Page 4

THE SMALL BIRD NUISANCE.

Mr Ashton, a chemist in the AgricuU tural Department, who has been at Ashburtou experimenting with poison for ibhe destruction of small birds with a view of ascertaining the -most effec-t tivt method of dealing with the nuisance, reports that the results of the experiments demonstrate indis-. putably that strychnine preparations mixed dry were so much more effective that he advises the abandonment of other methods of mixing at present practised in poisoning in favor of the following :—lolb of good sound wheat thoroughly dampened with fresh milk,, so that the grain will be wet but not. dripping with moisture; five sixteenths of an ouuee (aoverdupou) of powdered strychnine, not too fine, to be gradually shaken on to the the whole to be kept constantly stirred. When thoroughly mixed the grain should bo laid at once. This is best done by laying a good train of chafl, without oats, to attract attention, and by sprinkling the mixture on the chaff The quantity above mentioned, he es. timates as suflUent to poison a quarter of a million sparrows. He adds that larks, green linnets, blackbirds,, thrushes, and chaffinches will also take, the poison.