The English Sparrow Has Invaded Seattle — and the Songbirds Are Next

A nuisance that has for many years plagued the people of the Eastern cities has at last come to plague the West. It is now in Seattle, Tacoma and other Sound cities, having made its appearance but recently. It is the English sparrow, and with the coming of this bird the going of the native song birds of the country is only a question of a short time. This is the experience of all communities that have been afflicted with this belligerent and aggressive pest.

The sparrow had the reputation in his native home of being an honest, industrious bird, tireless in his search and pursuit of insects of every description; this was his business, and he carried it on successfully in and out of season. At home, in Merry Old England, he may have been a square and honorable bird, but in America he has proven an unmitigated fraud, a tramp and a common street scavenger.

New York, Philadelphia and Boston were the first cities to introduce the sparrow, and they did it for the purpose of ridding their parks and public grounds of worms and insects that were destroying the trees and foliage. With change of climate and country there also came a change of habit, and the sparrow proved a lazy loafer, more inclined to encourage the worms in their depredations than to prevent them. In one particular only was this bird a success, and that was in multiplying and replenishing the earth, and in this he continued until he was so numerous that premiums were offered for sparrow scalps. Every effort was made to rid those cities of the pestiferous birds, but it proved ineffectual; they apparently fattened and thrived on persecution.

They have now as effectually overrun the East as the English rabbits introduced into New Zealand overran that country, multiplying in a few years from dozens to millions, and proving as destructive as they were numerous. While sparrows have not been destructive of fruit or foliage, they have been the means of ridding the country they have invaded of all the song and native birds. The communities infected say they are birds without a redeeming quality, ugly of form, devoid of plumage and without song. They are worse than the insects they were intended to destroy.