Kill English Sparrows Without Mercy

Wichita can no longer be seen from the railroad of from the river for the forest of trees in which her streets and homes are now embowered. The result is, where we had a few birds ten years ago scattered along the margins of the two rivers, our sleeping chambers are now made redolent, in the first lights of each day, by the commingled music of thousands of feathered songsters that build, and bill, and plume, and sing o'er roof, by lattice and in every tree which surrounds. It is delightful and remarked by all strangers. Prominent among the songsters is the southern mocking bird, the thrush, the golden oriole, the finch, the red bird and several other commoner birds, including the lonely, cooing wild dove and the plaintive, chirping robin red breast. But all these gay singers and happy nest builders are to be driven off. Somebody has brought on a brood of those nasty little scavengers, and pesky gutter rooters known as the English sparrow, and turned them loose in this city. Last year there were but three or four, now there are two or three dozen pair chirping and sniffling like a chick dying of the gapes, in the trees hereabouts. Kill the last one of them for all other birds flee before these pugnacious little wretches, whose innocent looks hide the instincts of concentrated bull dog. They are more to be dreaded than the army worm or potato bug, and when they get a good hold they never let up. Don't allow one on your premises, but scotch them over the head with a club as you would an offending flea or pugnacious billy goat.

May 10, 1883. Kill 'em without mercy. Wichita Eagle 12(7): 3.

The Old-World Sparrow - An 1869 Poem

By Wm. Cullen Bryant.

We hear the note of a stranger bird

That ne'er till now in our land was heard.

A winged settler has taken his place

With Teutons and men of Celtic race;

He has followed their path to our hemisphere

The Old-World Sparrow at last is here.

 

He meets not here, as beyond the main,

The fowler's snare and poisoned grain,

But snug-built homes on the friendly tree;

And crumbs for his chirping family

Are strewn when the winter fields are drear,

For the Old-World Sparrow is welcome here.

 

The insects legions that sting our fruit

And strip the leaves from the growing shoot,

A swarming, skulking, ravenous tribe,

Which Harris and Flint so well describe

But cannot destroy, may quail with fear,

For the Old-World Sparrow, their bane, is here.

 

The apricot, in the summer ray,

May ripen now on the loaded spray,

And the nectarine, by the garden-walk,

Keep firm its hold on the parent stalk,

And the plum its fragrant fruitage rear,

For the Old-World Sparrow, their friend is here.

 

That pest of gardens, the little Turk

Who signs, with the crescent, his wicked work,

And causes the half-grown fruit to fall,

Shall be seized and swallowed, in spite of all

His sly devices of cunning and fear,

For the Old-World Sparrow, his foe, is here.

 

And the army-worm and the Hessian fly

And the dreaded canker-worm shall die,

And the thrip and slug and fruit-moth seek,

In vain, to escape that busy beak,

And fairer harvests shall crown the year,

For the Old-World Sparrow at last is here.

I hope I have not said too much for the sparrow. The multiplication of insects in this country within a few years past has occasioned the loss of many kinds of fruits, and the introduction of a bird which propagates in vast numbers, and feeds on almost every kind of insect, is a remedy which promises more than any other that I know of. In Great Britain, the house sparrow -- Fringilla domestica -- is by most farmers regarded as a pest as mischievous as the most noxious vermin, and is pursued and destroyed as remorselessly by traps and poisons as rats and mice. Yet some naturalists hold that they do as much good by destroying weeds and insects as harm by destroying crops and fruits. It is certain that the insect pests which make such havoc among our fruits do comparatively little mischief in Great Britain, probably, as it seems to me, because of the war carried on against them by the multitudes of sparrows.

January 1, 1869. Fremont Weekly Journal 17(1): 1, new series.