Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/208

 Trapping English sparrows for Food

���bread crumbs for six feet around the trap, leading the crumbs into the funnel. Large pieces of stale bread are used near and in the trap. Sparrows, being like hogs, in that they like to get where the big feed is, soon go from the first into the second division, from which they are easily forced into the last part, from which they are taken.

There is no reason why sparrows should not be util- ized for food, as they have been in the Old World for

��The mouths of the funnel are just large enough to admit the sparrow and keep him piisoner

HEREWITH is shown a trap for catching the English sparrow which is one hundred per cent efficient, if properly opera- ted. It is made of tinned wire, electrically welded, strong and durable. The size of the trap is thirty- six by eighteen by twelve inches, and weighs twenty-five pounds.

The United States Department of Agriculture advocates the destruction of the English sparrows, calling them "noisy, quarrelsome, filthy and destruc- tive." Native song-birds will never come back to our gardens in increasing num1)ers until the English sparrow is banisjied. These pugnacious birds are extremely cunning, and it is hard to trap them. Hut there is no trouble in enticing them into the trap shown if the pro[ier kind of bait is used for a partic- ular locality.

The flexible needle-points at the mouths of till' funnels can be adjusted so as to be just large enough to admit the sparrow and yet not large enoiigii for him to return. One family who used cracked corn for bait caught se\'en Jiun- dred and twenty-nine sparrows in sixty days. The usual method is to s]jrink]e

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���The bird-trap can be used at any place where sparrows congregate, even on the roofs of city apartment houses

��cinturies. Their flesh is palatable, and though their bodies are small, their num- ber fully compensates for their lack of size. Birds that have been trapped have been kept in large out-door cages, shel- tered from storms and cold winds, until they are wanted for the table. It is un- profitable to keep them long, as the ciuan- tity of grain or other food they require tlaily amounts to more than half their own weight. A variety of food is neces- sary to keep them in good condition. Bread, oats, wheat, bran and corn-meal mush, lettuce, cabbage and tender shoots of sprouting grain are some of the things they relish. Some time ago ex-Governor ("ox of Ohio gave a banc]uet to some of his friends, when the piece de resistance for the occasion was a sparrow-pie. Until after the banquet the guests were uncU-r the impression they were eating a ])ie made of squabs or reed-birds.

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