THE SMALL BIRDS NUISANCE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2236, 28 April 1881, Page 3

THE SMALL BIRDS NUISANCE.

The Kaiapoi Farmers’ Club has prepared a circular which is being sent in reply to numbers of applications for information how to poison sparrows. The directions given to poison a bushel of wheat are —“ Thoroughly dissolve one ounce of strychnine in half a pint of boiling vinegar, then add it to halt a gallon or so of boiling water; next put in a small quantity of phosphorus. Mix the liquor well and pour it on the wheat, which may be contained in a cask, tub, pot, tin, or iron vessel. Stir the liquor well into the wheat, cover it with a sack or cloth in order to retain the heat and steam, so that the grain may most fully absorb the poison. Let the wheat stay in steep say twelve or fifteen hours. Spread the grain for the sparrows late at night or before sunrise, so that they may break their fast upon it. Never mind drying the wheat.” The circular then adds ;—“ Don’t grudge two or three bushels. Remember the winter is the time to thin off sparrows. When the grain sprouts they become a nuisance, in harvest time they are a plague, and at that season there is no effectual means known for diminishing their number. Offer them the foregoing preparation in all April, May, and June, if you desire to curtail their destructiveness on young grain and ripe corn, and wo shall be glad to learn the result of your experience.” In connection with the sparrow nuisance, a suggestion was made by Dr. Brittain at the Acclimatisation Society’s meeting yesterday that some means might be devised of killing the sparrows without poisoning the game, the which latter effect frequently occurred. Mr Boys, the chairman, said he had thought a good deal on the subject. He considered the best and safest method was to scatter the poisoned grain on the high roads, whore the sparrows chiefly congregate, but which the game avoid.