Disappearance of swallows and other birds with the advent of sparrows at Syracuse, N. Y.
'That they destroy insects there is no doubt, but their work is not entirely beneficent; and melancholy accounts have been told of loss to the farmers by the havoc sparrows make in their grain.'
Results of two years' observations of sparrows at St. Louis, Mo. No molestation of native birds observed. 'I must say, however, that in my opinion the usefulness of the English sparrows as insect-destroying birds is greatly overrated, and that we have many native species who destroy more noxious insects in a single day than a sparrow will in a week.'
'English sparrows have had no agency in the disappearance of the worms' in Seneca County, N. Y. Editor continues: 'At the very time of their introduction into New York City and Brooklyn, a small ichneumon fly had already lessened very materially the number of span-worms, which were so disagreeably abundant in these cities, and it is very probable that the insects would have disappeared without the aid of the birds.'
'They are a most pestiferous bird, driving all our native birds away, and at the same time destroying no insect life that preys upon our roadside trees.'
