Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/638

622 But the relations of our native birds to the English sparrow seem now to be undergoing a change. F. H. Kirncoll (Auk, vol. vi, July, 1894, p. 261) has stated that in many localities in Illinois the English sparrow and native birds are now found nesting side by side, where only a few years ago the English sparrow occupied all the desirable nesting sites, and assumed so aggressive an attitude toward native birds that one rarely saw a native bird nesting in the regions inhabited by the English sparrow. "Either," he writes, "our native birds have unexpectedly developed powers of resistance at first unsuspected, or the pugnacity of the English sparrow has diminished, for certainly our own songsters have not been driven away, but, on the contrary, seem as numerous as they were twenty years ago. For the past two or three years, since my attention was first called to the matter, I have seen but little if any persecution of our native birds by the foreign sparrows; on the contrary, our own birds are now often the aggressors, and if they do not indulge in persecution themselves are adepts at defense. Very commonly a jay, robin, or catbird will from pure mischief hustle a flock of sparrows into desperate flight."

I find, on referring to the Government report of 1889, that the English sparrow has been present in the town of Burlington, Kansas, for ten or twelve years. My own attention was not attracted particularly to these birds until after they had been there for several years. Upon returning to Burlington in 1889, I began to look about upon the lawn for my old bird friends, and found none of them. Upon inquiry, I was told that they had all been driven away by the English sparrow. The wren house was occupied by sparrows. The martins, robins, bluebirds, and catbirds had all resisted according to their various strengths, and had been worsted in the conflict. The lawn under consideration is one peculiarly attractive to birds on account of its bountiful supply of shade trees. There is a long walk upon it completely shaded by apple and pear trees, of which the ripening fruit proves attractive to insects all summer long, while the fruit itself is no less enticing to bird than insect. On one side of the lawn there are cherry trees with their tempting fruit, and on the adjoining lots a large kitchen garden with its ripening seeds, berries, and freshly turned loam. Altogether this place furnishes a paradise for parent birds. The house itself was covered with vines of the Virginia and trumpet creepers. Within these vines the English sparrow took up its abode and soon so increased in numbers as to be able to mob any other bird that ventured on the premises. (July one pair of blue jays stubbornly clung to their nest in an apple tree. With this pair was throughout the summer waged one long and bitter warfare.