“What the swallow tribe do in killing innumerable flies in country parks, the sparrow does to some extent in the gardens and squares of London, especially in its more immediate suburbs. All the sparrows have got nests, many containing callow young, a few ‘flyers,’ and some are still sitting on the eggs. An old sparrow might be seen perched on the top of a house, and presently with a graceful motion the bird ‘rises to a passing fly’ and secures the morsel. If the bird or birds had got young in the water-spout hard by, or in the hole often left by builders missing a brick at the end of a row of houses, in ivy, or in the thick foliage of the Virginia creeper, the young birds get the ‘catch.’ Besides this fly-catching, I have noticed for the last few weeks the sparrows working in every evergreen bush, also in jessamines, in lilac-trees, and especially in the crevices of old walls, in search of spiders, earwigs, green-fly, daddy long-legs, etc. The adult birds seem to prefer this wall and bush ‘food’ more than crumbs of bread regularly thrown out for them, except where they have got a nestful of hungry youngsters, and then the latter get some of both. But how hard the sparrows work, and the starlings too!”
Now let us go a little farther from home. Some years ago the English sparrow was introduced into that country of free institutions called the United States. The sparrow has certainly made himself at home there. He has increased and multiplied a millionfold, and now America wants to “Extirpate the vipers.”
But the Americans do not always know what is good for them. Example: They have slain all their big game (where will you find a herd of wild buffalo now?), they have killed nearly all their birds, and well-nigh cut down their last bit of genuine forest.
Yes, the sparrow makes itself at home in America. Some months ago I was sitting in one of the beautiful open squares in New York. The sparrows were plentiful enough all about and enjoyed themselves very much, especially in flying through the playing fountains; it must be delightful to take a bath on the wing. A tall Yankee was sitting near me with outstretched legs. A sparrow alighted on the toe of his boot; he wore Number 10’s. He eyed it curiously and critically. I smiled.
“A cheeky bird,” I couldn’t help remarking.
“Yes, sir,” was the reply, “but—it’s British. That accounts.”
I “dried up” after that.
But even in America the British sparrow has made a few friends, as the following extract from Forest and Stream will prove:—
“A Good Word for the Sparrows.—I send you by this mail a lot of leaves of the maple growing in front of my office, which when gathered were literally covered with insects. What attracted my attention to them was the busy action of some two dozen English sparrows, hopping here and there in the tree, peering under the leaves, and savagely feeding on something. An inspection revealed the cause of their eagerness, and the cause of the early shedding of the leaves. Examine these vermin and tell us what they are. The sparrows were so busy they would scarcely keep out of the reach of my hand. I called the attention of several gentlemen, who watched them for some time. This proves (to me) the insectivorous habits of the English sparrow.”
Sparrows are treated with systematic cruelty by many in this country; they are trapped and shot wholesale and at all seasons, and not only are their nests torn down with the eggs in them, but even when filled with young, and these are allowed to expire—mere little naked things—on the ground.