THE BLESSED SPARROWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17170, 13 October 1923, Page 1

THE BLESSED SPARROWS.

To the Editor. Sir.—The subject® of this letter mas now be forced to seek existence on seeds, weeds or such • insects as venture out, but later every person knows they will attack the cherries and other fruit. Your early shipping article on Saturday reminds some of us how they arrived here. namely, per Captain Stevens’s ship Matoaka, in 1868, when there were imported a consignment of house and hedge sparrows with other British small birds. It was expected that the Christchurch Acclimatisation Society would be a good customer for the bird catchers of the Old Country, also that the new arrivals in the emigrant ships might prefer to hear the English birds in preference to the beautiful notes of the native birds. The Society—-those of it now remaining—declare they did not welcome the house sparrows and that at the wish of the shippers they were cast adrift to provide for themselves. How the sparrow family succeeded up to January 22. 1882, was worked out in a speech by the Hon W. J. Steward, in Parliament relating to the Small Birds Nuisance Bill. After commenting on the duties of Acclimatisation Societies, and some for the. ‘‘accentor modularis.”(the hedge sparrow which trilled a little song, and in spring bnilt a mossy nest in which it laid four blue eggs that it delighted the schoolboys to discover) the speaker went on to condemn the other sparrow family. “ passer domesticus,” in unmeasured terms, from the murder of Cock Robin to modern times. Then he launched into figures of which Hansard kept a record. One pair of P.D.’s at the end of a year would produce four broods of five birds each, this would supply 20 P.D.’s. Taking this number to keep round numbers , ut the end' of the second vear there would he 200, third vear 2000. fourth year 20,000, fifth year 200,000, sixth year 2,000.000, seventh vear 20.000,000 and eigth year 200,000,000. A s to their consumption of grain at seed time, about thirty-two days, he went on to Bay that if each bird averaged one ounce per day, or two pounds for the term stated it would in the fifth year with 200,000 sparrows he 6.666 bushels of 001 b. A bushel of wheat at. 6s a • bushel would he £1333, and in the sixth year the wheat consumed, estimated at 66,666 bushels, would possess a value of £133.300. The calculation could he extended, of course, and if Sir William were now alive he might have given a return of the lessened cargoes of wheat ships and loss in agricultural revenue. The sparrow clußs had been at work when this computa tion was made, and caused a decline in the sparrow census. Councils and Road Boards were paying hoys to collect hundreds of thousands of sparrow heads and eggs. It was. however, admitted to he impossible to counteract the headway which the Matoaka sparrow importations had made in fourteen years. Hence “ passer domesticus ” is still flourishing as in the subsequent forty years, and this is what makes the sparrow question 6till more important. The birds have not eaten the whole of the recent wheat harvests, nor have they by the way discussed all the cherries, but they have made .a great mess of the fruit. At the time of 1882 America was groaning that England was sending dynamite to that country, infernal machines, potato bugs and trichinae, all of which were not so had as the sparrows. Mr Alfred Saunders had first moved in Parliament for a Birds Nuisance Bill, but ’ Mr Steward hoped to succeed, and he did, although Mr W. Rolleston said lie was quite convinced the sparrow was one of the most useful creatures possible, and that if it were not for the sparrows farmers would he pretty well driven out. Yet he found an excuse for supporting the Rill because “it was necessary to keep them down.” The Bill became law. At this point some of the bird men and the farmers will perhaps give some explanation as to perhaps give some explanation as to how the contest stands between the “ passer domesticus ” and the interests of the Dominion, and whether the counties and road hoard officials and the small hovs maintain some balance in nature which enables the wheat to be grown and the Matoaka sparrows to escape from starvation and extermination.—l am, etc., JEW. Kaiapoi. October 10.