English Sparrow Control. Page: 3

                                
ENGLISH SPARROW CONTROL                    3
Incubating female sparrows may be captured at night in nest boxes
by holding the opening of a long-handled net over tile entrance while
the box is struck sharply to dislodge the bird. SparCapturing
and rows using other cavities as places of nightly resort
Shooting      often may be captured in a similar manner. When
these birds occupy barn cupolas or other inclosures
at night they may even be captured by hand through the use of
electric flash lights, which temporarily blind the birds.
The simple expedient of using firearms against English sparrows
needs merely to be mentioned. Most effective results are obtained
by inducing the birds to feed at certain places by baiting with grain,
which should be scattered in long narrow lanes along which shooting
may be directed when the birds flock to them. In this manner numhers
of them may be killed with little expenditure of ammunition.
The size of shot most suitable for this purpose is No. 10.
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FIGURE 1.-A, Tesch nest-box trap; B, details of construction
English-sparrow traps are of two types, nest-box traps and bait
traps. The former are effective chiefly during the nesting season
but are useful in reducing the local breeding populaNest-box
      tion. Nest-box traps may either be automatic or
Traps          require the attention of an operator. The automatic
type, though time-saving, is somewhat less certain in
its operation. The Tesch nest-box trap, invented by Charles H.
Tesch, of Wisconsin, is among the simpler of the self-operating type
(fig. 1) and has the advantage that, after the capture of a bird, it
resets itself. As described by Dearborn, the essential parts of the
trap are: (1) A box, (2) a tipping chamber within the box, (3) a
down s    Gpout below it, and  (4) a bag at the lower end of  the down
spout. The dimensions of the several parts are given in Figure 1, B.
The tipping chamber is made of tin, the down spout of wood or tin,
the box of wood. The roof board is cleated across the ends, and also