Gas Attack

One of civic Washington's greatest problems is starlings, small insectivorous birds first brought to the U. S. in 1890 from England to combat sparrows. One Civil Works relief project during the past two months was to oust great crowds of starlings from downtown Washington. At night CWA men climbed trees, scaled roofs, went after the birds. Result was that the starlings fled for sanctuary to the Capitol. Flocks of them darkened the dome, settled on window ledges, twittered, committed nuisances until Congressmen could no longer bear them. David Lynn, Capitol architect, was assigned to drive them off. He rigged a series of automobile horns around the building, blew them all periodically by pressing a button. When he pressed, the starlings took flight. When he stopped they alighted. Then he sent men with toy balloons on long strings to frighten the starlings from the ledges. The starlings cheeped derisively. In despair he wrote the Department of Agriculture.* Last week the Department suggested that the only remedy might be to use deadly hydrocyanic acid gas--a ticklish job necessitating careful preparations lest Congressmen and bystanders fall dead. Architect Lynn then persuaded the Department's Biological Survey officially to classify the starlings as pests. It is the duty of the Survey to destroy pests. So a gas attack on the Capitol was planned for some midnight this week.

* Other bird pests which the Department announced last week that it was combating: horned larks (from eating sugar beets); crows (from eating almonds); sea gulls (from digging divots out of golf courses).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.