Show S I PASSER DOMESTICUS As spring comes along and the genial sun warms all nature and the cool and breezy night wears away the cares of the diy there comes also the sparrow and in the streets he is as bustling and busy as the fly during the afternoon siesta in August Spring seems to give him renewed vigor if for a moment he has ever lost it He is ever in the trees ever on the eaves he is ever in the street but he is never in good graces From his throat constant and grating pound issues forth in a manner jerking and haggling like the bargaining of a fish woman And why should it not be thus He comes from the shopkeepers country and the haunts of the shopman are his favoriio resorts He never sings for he feeds upon the foul things of the earth and knows not the paths of the woodlands The fields with daisies pied and violets blue he has never seen Of the lark of the sky and the poets praise he has never heard He is the bird of civilization he knows not of nature and her ways nor did his ancestors J IIe came to the Territory a guest under un-der legislative protection He found the climate pleasant the people kind and courteous and declared his intention to become a citizen His five years of residence resi-dence are long since passed and so well has he adapted himself to his new surroundings sur-roundings that he is more at home than the natives whom he found here and whom he has driven away As the white man drove the Indian from his hunting grounds and forced him toward the setting set-ting sun from whence he will never return re-turn so has the sparrow driven from our gardens and our parks the sweetsonged j chippey the beautiful and shy blue bird a r t r the orioles the bohemian chatterer and the red robin with soft and mellow notes They are all gone and there remains of them only the memory but it is the memory of our youth filled with sunshine sun-shine and bird songs before we knew i there were in the world harsh sounds of wild discord The English sparrow was introduced by a wellknown gentleman of our city with the best of good wishes for the public welfare He was in advance of the community in desiring to rid the place of the pest of small insects with I which it was infested and his act was applauced by all His efforts have not had the result hoped for and the public expected They have not been a blessing bless-ing in any sense and are a pest and nuisance everywhere about town They are fast spreading into the country They I are among the first to mate and they I bring forth large broods There seems to be no limit to the number of broods each season but on the contrary it seems as though when there is nothing else to do they hatch more fledglings A Many claim they perform the work they were brought to do and that we are freer from insects than we should otherwise other-wise be We gravely doubt the claim and cite as an authority against it the writings of Dr Elliot Coues U S A author of Key to Northern Birds and the leading ornithologist of the United States today fave perhaps Professor S F Baird of the Smithsonian Institution and Mr Robert Ridgway Steps should be taken to destroy and extirpate them if possible As we remember re-member there is a city ordinance against killing them and if so it should be repealed immediately that the work of their destruction may go forward Let a small reward be offered say a cent apiece a-piece for all sparrows killed and brought to a place designated and where the boys cannot get at and make a circulating circu-lating medium of them and so much for I each nest containing a certain number of eggs or young ones and they will rapidly diminish A7ill someone interested in ornithology begin the agitation |