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Second Council Meet……………(6

cleaned out easily.  If the traps were on a tree they could be cleaned by dropping the bottom out.  I put up 4 of these on my own grounds at home.  The sparrows paid no particular attention to them.  One day a bluebird went in.  Two sparrows were sitting 2 or 3 feet away, and when the bluebird went away the sparrows went right in.  I do not believe any sparrow went in until the bluebird did.  At the time I left there were no signs of sparrows around the nesting box.  I think afterwards, one box was occupied by sparrows but the other 3 were not.  I have found only one style of trap that has been successful in catching sparrows.  Yesterday Dr. Fisher received a letter from a man in Milwaukee showing plans of a trap in which he c[la]ims he caught a number of sparrows and I am going to write him today to learn more about it. 

     In attempting to poison sparrows and watching them, I learned another thing. They have particular places in which they feed and also where they rest between meals.  Last year there was a bunch in the garden in front of the main building, and I killed half a dozen of them with poison.  After that I saw the sparrows in some shrubbery but did not see any more feeding in that particular place.  On stormy days they came there to rest and preen themselves, but they fed elsewhere.

[[underline]] Dr. Fisher:[[/underline]] At the suggestion of the Secretary we turned over plans and specifications of the sparrow trap to the Solicitor to have this trap patented, so that some energetic fellow not steal the patent and then offer to sell us the right of using it. 

[[underline]] Prof. Lantz:[[/underline]]  I noticed a good many years ago, during a 17-year locust invasion in Pennsylvania, most of the sparrows left the towns and went out in the country killing the insects.  It was in June, and the young sparrows from the nests were all out there, and they abandoned everything else to kill the locusts. 

[[underline]] Dr. Dearborn: [[/underline]] It is a rule with the vast majority of birds that they will eat the thing most easily obtained. 

[[underline]] Dr. Kalmbach:[[/underline]] It is the prime factor that governs the bird's food. 

[[underline]] Dr. Fisher: [[/underline]] So it is with the mammals, and even with fish. 

[[underline]] Dr. Dearborn:[[/underline]] Whenever there is an insect outbreak you can depend on birds in general helping to suppress it.