1878. 1878. 1878. 1878. 1878. 1878. The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus] at the Bar. <New York Times, Sept. 3, 1878. Three letters from correspondents. 1. "G. H. G." argues pro and con. 2. "I. H. B." reasons emphatically against the birds: "talk with an Englishman, a German, or an Italian, who knows anything about their habits, and he will laugh at the folly of Americans for introducing them here." 3. "N. D." does not apparently believe that they harass native birds. [A column or more on the Sparrow question.] < New York Times, Sept. 2, 1878. Not seen. 1878. Etchings and Echoes. Daily Evening Traveller (Boston), Aug. 13, "Thousands of Sparrows visit the grounds about the East Boston grain elevator, daily, and it is apparent that they prefer the wheat brought from the West to the insects that swarm.' The Sparrow [Passer domesticus] Question in England. The Chicago Field, Sept. 28, 1878. Letters from S. E. Garnett and E. Anthony, against and for the bird. The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus]. <Forest and Stream, Oct. 3, 1878, pp. 179, 180. That the Sparrow may be a blessing in one place and a nuisance in another is brought forward by a correspondent from Bay Ridge, Long Island, who signs himself "Fair Play for the Sparrows." This is followed by "a delightful picture of a home surrounded by feathered songsters," signed "Naturalist," who states that he has more song-birds about him than he had before the Sparrows came. An Enemy to the Sparrows [Passer domesticus]. <The Post (Washington, D. C.), Nov. 22, 1878. A paragraph stating that an article entitled the "Ineligibility of the European House Sparrow in America" had been sent by its author to the Commissioners of the District, accompanied by a letter recommending measures to be taken to abate the nuisance. 1879. ANON. [BREWER, T. M.] Conclusive Testimony [that Passer domesticus does not molest native birds]. < Boston Journal, Jan. 17, 1879. Mr. G. H. Coues having shortly before published a list of sixty species of birds observed in Brooklyn, New York, where the Sparrows are abundant, T. M. Brewer anonymously regards this as "conclusive testimony." Yet by parity of reason it would be maintained that hawks and owls do not molest other birds, there being several of these rapacious birds in the list. Nor does the writer stop to consider how many more species more numerously represented might have been found there but for the Sparrows. 1879. BAGG, E., jr. A Plea for the Birds [of America, against the invasion of Passer domesticus]. <Utica Morning Herald and Daily Gazette, Feb. 5, 1879. A fair and extended statement of the case. 1879. BROWNE, F. C. Advice unheeded. <Forest and Stream, Jan. 30, 1879. Showing that we had been duly forewarned by H. J. Bruce, who, in an article on the Birds of India, after quoting Dr. Jerdon as saying that the Passer of that country was one of the greatest pests, goes on to state his apprehensions that the experiment of introducing the birds in America would prove ill-advised and inexpedient. Dr. Bruce's remarks will be found in The American Naturalist, vi. 1872, pp. 468–470. "If the sparrow is to be introduced into America to devour the larvæ of insects, it should be remembered that it is for the most part a feeder on grain, seeds and buds and that it only makes a business of devouring grubs during its breeding season. I trust that those who have to do in this matter will act advisedly, lest they should introduce that which will eventually become as great a nuisance in its way, as the curculio and the cankerworm." This prescience of 1872 was, as Mr. Browne says, "advice unheeded." 1879. COUES, E. Latest from the Seat of War in Sparrowland. <Forest and Stream, Feb. 27, 1879. Merely satirizing the anonymous article entitled "Conclusive Testimony," which appeared in the Boston Journal of January 17, 1879. The writer enquires, further, respecting that Napoleonic confidence in Sparrows which the Bostonians display by using coal-tar to protect their trees from the insects which the Sparrows are declared by some to have effectually destroyed. 1879. EDITOR. [G. B. GRINNELL.] This is Evidence [against Passer domesticus as a destroyer of insects]. <Forest and Stream, xii. No. 10, Apr. 10, 1879, p. 190. Analyzing and commenting upon C. J. Maynard's results of dissection of 56 sparrows in whose stomachs no insects were found. 1879. HOAG, JULIA S. The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus]. <Forest and Stream, Feb. 20, 1879. An extended and impartial article, largely historical, and an interesting contribution to the subject. "Inasmuch as nearly all the reliable statements with regard to the sparrow are decidedly to his discredit," &c. "In 1874, Dr. Thomas M. Brewer recorded himself in favor of the sparrow, and, I believe, still maintains that attitude towards them. This con viction has been forced upon me, though it may now seem a reiteration of Dr. Coues, to those who have followed him, that scientific testimony is strongly adverse to the sparrow, and sentiment only is his warm ally." E. Coues's paper in The American Naturalist for August, 1878, is largely cited in evidence. 1879. HOWELL, E. H. A Check on the Sparrows [Passer domesticus]. <Forest and Stream, Mar. 13, 1879, p. 106. Scops asio feeding on the Sparrows. The editor wishes the owl "good speed in the good work." 1879. INGERSOLL, E. Sketches by a Traveler. <The Chicago Field, Apr. 12, 1879. Having seen the MS. of an article by E. Coues "On the Present Status of Passer domesticus in America," etc., the writer devotes about half of his "Sketch" to the consideration of this subject, with extracts from the then unpublished bibliography with which Dr. Coues's article concludes. 1879. INGERSOLL, E. War on the Sparrows [Passer domesticus]. <Evening Post (N. Y.), Apr. —, 1879. Dated from Washington, April 2, and doubtless published within a few days. The sub. head-"What Dr. Elliott Coues is doing to prevent the destruction of Western crops-his reasons for believing that the English Sparrow is scarcely less dangerous than the grasshopper-a warning to the West and a scheme for avoiding the danger"-indicates the char. acter of the article, which is based upon that published by E. Coues in Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv. vol. v, No. 2, pp. 175–194. 1879. MAYNARD, C. J. The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus]. <The Scientific Farmer (Boston), Mar. 1879, pp. 35-37, figs. 25, 26. An important article, giving direct testimony, from original dissections, of the nature of the Sparrow's food. In not a single one of the 56 cases was a trace of insect food found. 1879. READ, M. C. The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus] and our Native SongBirds. Amer. Nat. xiii. No. 3, Mar. 1879, pp. 190, 191. "It cannot be supposed that the native songsters retire in anticipation of the intrusion of their foreign cousins, and some other cause for their disappearance must be sought." 1879. "S." The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus]. Gentleman, Jan. 30, 1879. <Cultivator and Country ... The damage done to corn. "These pests alighted upon a piece of field corn, tore open the ends of the ears with their strong bills, and fed upon the soft grain. . . . In this way nearly every ear over a large portion of the field was damaged before it became too hard for them to operate upon." 1879. S[CHIEFFELIN?], E. The Sparrows [Passer domesticus]. One who took part in bringing them to this city now takes up the pen in their defence. <N. Y. Evening Post, Apr. 15, 1879. A well-written article, doubtless by Mr. Eugene Schieffelin, saying what can be said in defence of the birds, but largely supporting his statements by facts of the case as observed in Europe. The paper is one of the fairest and otherwise best of those that have been written on the off side of the controversy. 1879. S. S. O. The English Sparrow [Passer Domesticus]. <Unknown paper, Jan. 16, 1879. Damage done to corn. 1879. "W. C." The English Sparrow [Passer domesticus]. <Gardener's Monthly, Feb. 1879. "Concerning the English Sparrow eating fruit I can speak positively." Art. XII.—The Laramie Group of Western Wyoming and Adjacent Regions. By A. C. Peale, M. D. In this paper I wish briefly to note a few facts in reference to the occurrence of the Laramie Group or Post-Cretaceous Formation in Eastern Idaho and Western Wyoming (the district examined by me in the summer of 1877). The term Post-Cretaceous was first used by Dr. C. A. White,* although the transitional character of the strata so referred has long been recognized and insisted upon by Dr. Hayden. This transitional character of the Laramie Group is also acknowledged by Prof. E. D. Cope, who says: "In arranging the Laramie Group, its necessary position is between Tertiary and Cretaceous, but on the Cretaceous side of the boundary, if we retain those grand divisions, which it appears to me to be desirable to do."+ Professor Cope also gives a table of the fauna of the Laramie Group and the correlated French strata (Sables de Bracheux and Conglomerate de Cerny), and says: "The result is clear that the French and American formations together bridge most completely the interval between the Cretaceous and Tertiary series, as has been anticipated by Hayden, in America, on geological grounds." It is well known that the evidence of palæobotany is in favor of the Tertiary age of the group, while invertebrate palæontology is negative in its evidence. It is unnecessary to enter into any discussion on the subject at this place. As long as the evidence presented by the various organic remains is so conflicting, being partly Tertiary and partly Cretaceous in its testimony, it seems advisable to retain the name Post-Cretaceous for the Laramie Group. In the district assigned me for examination in 1877, there were two areas in which the Laramie Group formed a considerable portion of the surface rocks, viz, on the western side of the Green River Basin in Western Wyoming, and in the region of Bear River and Smith's Fork. I shall now briefly describe these two areas. Green River Basin.—In going westward from Green River, in the northern part of the Green River Basin, the sandstones and shales of the Green River Group and the variegated beds of the underlying Wahsatch * Bulletin U. S. Geol. and Geograph. Survey of the Territories, vol. iii, No. 3, p. 608. + Bulletin U. S. Geol. and Geograph. Survey of the Terr., vol. v, No. 1, pp. 38, 39. Ibid., pp. 37, 38. Group are observed to rise gently as the Wyoming Mountains are approached. The Wyoming Mountains extend north and south in longitude 110° 48'. Before they are reached, however, we come to an anticlinal fold, which forms a ridge that is approximately parallel to the mountains and about six miles east of them. This fold, named Meridian Fold, marks the rim of Green River Basin in this region, and is composed of Jurassic and Cretaceous strata. Between the ridge thus formed and the Wyoming Mountains there is a depressed area named Meridional Valley, in which there is a series of gray and greenish sandstones and shales resting conformably upon the Cretaceous beds. They are several thousand feet in thickness and dip to the westward, abutting against the westward-dipping Carboniferous limestones of the Wyoming Range. The junction marks the line of a fault of some 2,000 or 3,000 feet, the downthrow being on the east. At two points only were fossils found along the west side of the Green River Basin. The following were recognized: Campeloma macrospira. Few as they are, they are sufficient to warrant the reference of the beds from which they were obtained to the Laramie Group. The line of junction of the Laramie sandstones and the Carboniferous limestones is generally obscured by the débris, but at several places the contact was so well seen as to leave no doubt of its being a fault, and not a line marking the ancient shore-line of the Laramie Sea. There was also no evidence in the sandstones of the immediate proximity of a shore-line during their deposition, as there was in the beds of the Wahsatch Group. The line of the fault does not extend in a straight line along the eastern front of the range; but the Laramie sandstones fill bay-like recesses in the range. This is especially the case towards the north, and led me at first to think that the range had formed a part of the shore-line of the Laramie Sea. In the northern part of Meridional Valley, fragments of the Wahsatch Group are seen resting unconformably on the Laramie sandstones, and continuing also over the ends of the Cretaceous strata, although usually the Wahsatch Group does not extend west of the Meridian fold, where it is seen resting on the upturned edges of Jurassic and Cretaceous strata. The Green River Group does not usually reach the summit of the ridge, seeming to have been eroded away as the beds were uplifted to form its eastern slopes, and now it forms bluffs facing the ridge just as the place of greater inclination is reached. The portion of the Wahsatch Group resting on the older beds probably represents only the upper part of the group, and has a thickness of only 700 or 800 feet. Its conglomerates contain pebbles of Carboniferous limestone, evidently derived from the adjacent Wyoming Range. It is evident, therefore, that precedent to the deposition of these beds. |