That's just amazing. I think you mentioned most if not all of the dozen or so birds I see daily at my feeders. Exceptions might be the House Sparrow and House Finch, since they had not yet been introduced to North America (as far as I've heard, anyway.) Are you aware of an online copy of that book? It's encyclopedic and a good reference for the time in which it was written. Thank you.
House sparrows hadn't become widespread by 1867, but by the turn of the century when people started thinking of them as pests, there was a lot of encouragement to get people to eat them. There's a great USDA report from 1910 that calls the birds "palatable and nutritious" in the hopes that people would start hunting them as food.
That's just amazing. I think you mentioned most if not all of the dozen or so birds I see daily at my feeders. Exceptions might be the House Sparrow and House Finch, since they had not yet been introduced to North America (as far as I've heard, anyway.) Are you aware of an online copy of that book? It's encyclopedic and a good reference for the time in which it was written. Thank you.
I agree, it's an incredible resource! It's available at google books here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Market_Assistant/2z4EAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
House sparrows hadn't become widespread by 1867, but by the turn of the century when people started thinking of them as pests, there was a lot of encouragement to get people to eat them. There's a great USDA report from 1910 that calls the birds "palatable and nutritious" in the hopes that people would start hunting them as food.