Page 356 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

334 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
turn out and hunt for the animals until they are found and pulverized. No matter if it should require a thousand men and $100,000, find them! If not found, the cost to the state will soon be a million a year, with no ending.
In spite of the vigilance of our custom house officers, every now and then a Hindoo from some foreign vessel sneaks into the country with a pet mongoose (and they do make great pets!) inside his shirt, or in the bottom of a bag of clothing. Of course, whenever the Department of Agriculture discovers any of these surreptitious animals, they are at once confiscated, and either killed or sent to a public zoological park for safe-keeping. In New York, the director of the Zoological Park is so genuinely concerned about the possibility of the escape of a female mon- goose that he has issued two standing orders : All live mongooses offered to us shall at once be purchased, and every female animal shall im- mediately be chloroformed.
If Herpestes griseus ever breaks loose in the United States, the crime shall not justly be chargeable to us.
The English Sparrow.—In the United States, the English sparrow isanationalsorrow,almosttoogreattobeendured. Itisabirdofplain plumage, low tastes, impudent disposition and persistent fertility. Con- tinually does it crowd out its betters, or pugnaciously drive them away, and except on very rare occasions it eats neither insects nor weed seeds. It has no song, and in habits it is a bird of the street and the gutter. _ There is not one good reason why it should exist in this country. If it were out of the way, our native insect-eaters of song and beauty could return toourlawnsandorchards. TheEnglishsparrowisanuisanceandapest, and if it could be returned to the land of its nativity we would gain much.