ENGLISH SPARROWS AT HOME.
"Wheat-farmers are troubled by rabbits, and also by sparrows, which were introduced to kill off caterpillars and other insect pests. The sparrows increased in numbers almost as rapidly as the rabbits; they changed their habits, and from carnivorous taste turned to eating fruits and grains. The New Zealand sparrow shuns the caterpillars and worms he was imported to devour, and feeds on the products of the garden and the field. The same is the case in Australia, where the sparrows are now in countless millions, the descendants of fifty birds that were imported about 1860. The colonial governments have offered rewards for the heads and eggs of the sparrows, and though this has caused an extensive destruction it has not perceptibly diminished their numbers.
"In an official investigation of the 'sparrow pest,' one man testified that he sowed his peas three times, and each time the sparrows devoured them. Another told how the birds destroyed a ton and a half of grapes, in fact cleared his vineyard, and others said they had been robbed of all the fruit in their gardens."
This is a good place to say something about the exotics that have been introduced into the Australasian colonies. Cattle, horses, sheep, and swine have been of unequivocal benefit, and so has been the stocking of the rivers with trout, carp, and other food fishes of Europe. Larks and a few other song-birds have thus far proved of no trouble, but even they may yet give cause to regret their introduction. In addition to the animal pests already mentioned, the Indian mina, or mino-bird, a member of the starling family, has become a great nuisance, almost equal to the sparrow.
We will now turn from the animal to the vegetable exotics.
Wheat, oats, and the other grains are of course in the same beneficial category as the domestic animals. The innocent water-cress, which is such a welcome addition to the breakfast and dinner table, has grown with such luxuriance as to choke the rivers, impede the navigation of those formerly navigable, and cause disastrous floods which have resulted in loss of life and immense destruction of property. In the Otago and Canterbury districts of New Zealand, the Government makes a large expenditure every year to check the growth of this vegetable pest.
The daisy was introduced to give the British settler a reminder of home, and already it has become so wide-spread as to root out valuable grasses. Years ago an enthusiastic Scotchman brought a thistle to Melbourne, and half the Scotchmen in the colony went there to see it. A grand dinner was given in honor of this thistle, and on the following day it was planted with much ceremony in the Public Garden of Melbourne. From that thistle and its immediate descendants the down was carried by the winds all over Victoria, and many thousands of acres of once excellent fields are now covered with tall purple thistles to the exclusion of everything else. Large amounts of money have been expended in the effort to eradicate the thistle, but all in vain.