liberty, and the pursuit of happiness after their own fashion. To offset all this what have we? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
From KEY TO NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS,
By DR. ELLIOTT COUES.
The English sparrow was imported about fifteen [twenty] years ago. During a craze which even affected some Ornithologists, making people fancy that a granivorous conirostral bird would rid us of insect-pests, this sturdy and invincible little bird has overrun the whole country, and proved a nuisance without a redeeming quality. Well-informed persons denounced the bird without avail during the years when it might have been abated; but further protest is futile, for the sparrows have it all their own way, and can afford to laugh at legislature, like rats, mice, cockroaches and other parasites of the human race which we have imported. This species, of all birds, naturally attaches itself more closely to man, and easily modifies its habits to suit such artificial surroundings; this ready yielding to conditions of environment, and profiting by them, makes it one of the creatures best fitted to survive in the struggle for existence under whatever conditions man may afford or enforce; hence it wins in every competition with native birds, and in this country has as yet developed no counteractive influence to restore a disturbed balance of forces, nor any check whatever upon its limitless increase. Its habits need not be noted, as they are already better known to everyone than any native bird whatever.
