SMALL BIRDS MUISANCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 891, 14 May 1903, Page 4

SMALL BIRDS MUISANCE.

By Telegraph—Press Association— Wellington, last night.

Mr Aston, chemist oi the Agricultural Department, who has been at Ashburton experimenting c-n poisons for small birds with the view of ascertaining the most effective method of dealing with the nuisance, reports that the results of his experiments demonstrate indisputably that strychnine preparations, mixed dry, were so much more effective that ho advises the abandonment of other methods of mixing at present practised in poisoning in favor of the following Ten pounds good sound wheat, thoroughly damped with fresh milk ; that grain is wet, but not dripping with moisture ; five-sixteenths of an ounce (avoirdupois) powdered strychnine, not too line, gradually shaken on to the grain, the whole being kept constantly stirred. When thoroughly mixed the grain should be laid at once. This is best done by laying a good train of chaff without oats to attract attention, and slightly sprinkling the mixture on the chaff. The quantity above mentioned he estimates is sufficient to poison a quarter o» a million of sparrows. He adds that larks, green linnets, blackbirds, thrushes, and chaffinches will also take the poicon.