City Bird

The year 1950, midpoint of the century, is also the 100th anniversary of the landing of the English sparrows in the U.S. Finicky ornithologists regard the immigrants as neither sparrows nor even especially English. They are weaver finches, originally from Africa, and have made a great success in life by attaching themselves, like the dog, the bedbug and the rat, to the fortunes of man. They colonized Europe long ago, swarming in its cities paved with nutritious refuse. In 1850 they reached Brooklyn.

Like other U.S. cities, Brooklyn in those days was plagued by bugs. The shy and decorative native birds did not like city life. As U.S. cities expanded, the birds retired to rural refuges, leaving the shade trees and flower gardens defenseless against insects. Officials of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences discussed the problem at length, finally sent to England for an urban bird: the English sparrow.

Promised Land. The first successful colony was established in Greenwood Cemetery, but soon all Brooklyn was occupied. The loud, tough sparrows quickly became well-adjusted Brooklynites, and they found the city a sparrow's paradise. The streets were strewn with the stable midden of the horse-&-buggy age, and under each bright streetlight was a discus of dead bugs.

The sparrows never had it so good. They applied themselves to multiplication, and soon overflowed Brooklyn. Riding in empty grain cars along the newbuilt railroads, they pioneered the West. By 1886 they had occupied all of the U.S.

Soon there were cries of anguish from U.S. bird lovers. The violent, aggressive English sparrows were too successful. Wherever the sparrows came, bluebirds and wrens got out. Audubon Society members reported heartrending sights of native birds being pursued, insulted and pecked by sparrows.

Inverse Commuters. The aroused Audubon Society, a dangerous adversary, considered the English sparrow Bird Enemy No. 1, outranking the feral cat and the small boy with an air rifle. Pamphlets blackened the sparrow's name. Said Biologist Ned Dearborn of the U.S. Biological Survey: "The English sparrow among birds, like the rat among mammals, is cunning, destructive and filthy."

But by the 19205 the sparrow hosts were already declining, anyhow; the early years of the century had been their Golden Age. Their downfall was not the Audubon Society, but the automobile. As horses grew scarcer & scarcer, sparrows grew scarcer too. Now they survive in cities mostly on the leavings of pigeons.

In some smaller U.S. cities, sparrows are still plentiful. There they have solved their food problem by a kind of inverse commuting. True to their urban traditions, they build their nests in town. In the mornings they fly out to the country to forage in grainfields and barnyards. Then back they commute, full-fed, for the brawling social life in town.

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