THE SPARROW QUESTION.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2081, 3 January 1879, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE SPARROW QUESTION.

The question as to what shall be done to abate the English sparrow pest is rapidly becoming one of natural importance. Our able zoologist, Dr. Elliot Coves, ex presses himself on this subject in very decided terms in the " American Naturalist." He says the sparrow is a nuisance in a variety of ways ; that it does no appreciable good ; that it does a very obvious amount bf damage ; that it harrasses, drires off, and sometimes destroys useful native birds ; that it has no place in the natural economy of this country, and that the complement of our t>ird fauna is made up without the interloper. There is no room for these birds, and "if there is any work for them, time has shown that they slight it, or neglect it altogether. The # only way to make these sparrows eat the worms they were imported to destroy, a-id which they seem specially to dislike, would be to starve, them into such unpia'ahle fare. Instead of this,we sedulously feod them atour tables till they are grown too lat and lazy to think of worm*. And if we did not do so it would be useless to expect them to take to a diet they do not relish, when the streets are lull of manure, of which they are specially fond, and the trees of our orchards and lawns are full of fruit and j blossoms, nod the gardens are full of small fruits, and thf fields are waving with grain — nil these things being the natural food of birds of the sparrow tribe, to whom an insectivorous diet is only an occasional and temporary variation." These birJs have at present no natural enemies, nor an)' check whatever upon a limitless increase, a fact that would be undesirable even in the case of desirable birds. Dr. Cones helivrs that if the limitless multiplication of "these pestilent famine breeders" is allowed to go on unchecked, "we may have before long, people knocking at the congressional gates for an appropriation for a Sparrow Commission, like the Grasshopper Commission now sitting, to consider if there be any available relief from the scourge." He believes the numbers might be kept down, if not diminished, without any unneccessary cruelty, by : (i) " Letting the birds shift for themselves ; turning them loose and putting them on a footing with other birds — that is, taking down the boxes and all other contrivances for sheltering them : stop petting and feeding them ; stop supplying them with building materials ; let them look out for themselves. (2) Abolish the legal pern! ties (or killing them. Let boys kill them if they wish ; or let them be trapped and used as pigeons or glass balls are now used, in shooting matches among sportsmen. Vast numbers of pigeons are destroyed in this way ; there are even " sparrow clubs" »n various cities, which make a business of practicing on various of our small native birds, for which the European sparrows would be an admirable substitute, answering all the conditions these marksmen could desire. In this way the birds might be even made a source of some little revenue, instead of a burden and pest, as they could be sold by the city to such persons as might desire them for sporting purposes." English papers long ago warned us that the iutro'luction of these sparrows would prove a great mistake, and we are now beginning to find it out.