THE SPARROW PEST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue VII, 20 November 1889, Page 3

THE SPARROW PEST.

Id a city shipping office tho other day i mw (aayß the London correspondent of the " New Zealand Times ' )an old placard pasted against the wall giving useful hints to emigrants, more e&pecially to JNew Zealand and Australia. The paper stated that m the former colony a bonus would be given for every sparrow landed there alive. I wonder who authorised that j placard. £ fancy he won Id have a rough half hour now-a-days with some of the colonial farmtra. A few jeura ago, 1 when the Americans became etrioken with Anglo-phobia they quoted yards of prose and poetry upon the valuable addition to lhe charms of American j scenery by the int/oduction of the Engllsn sparrow. He was introduced, •nd dow the Americans are sorry for it, and woald pay a decent rouud earn to the genius wno could exterminate them. Id some districts they erect a fence of wire roond a large p&ddock. These w.ireß convey a powerful olectrlo current, and are not insulated. Groin la eoattered h~eely m tho paddocfe, and this st'raoSs sparrows by the thousand. By and bye, Vhen ibe ipurowi have bad a good feed, a tew dogv' *uu among them. This drives them into w.ne wires of tha fence, where the electric co.went puts an ted to their existence. la England, tbe sparrows. being cot a nuisance to tho farmers, have robbed our rnral Ufa of a great charm and benefit. The? nsvo driven away the •wallow, aa iEeeotlvorou* bird. Thla summer has ecen almost tba extinction of the familiar awal ow. What will oar poets do cow I No more csn they sine "when swallows buUd," or "when the •wallows homeward fly." The sparrows feave simply taken possaßolon of the ■waliowe' nests no soon as they have been completed and tbe eggs laid. These eggs have been forced out cf the nest and become destroyed. The ewahowa have felt this iasait so deeply that by ojllverssl consent they appear ti uavu forsaken Old EogUnd for ever.