| Show more eore about sparing the birds this is perhaps to some theme yet its importance to the farmer and and gardener demands a constant recurrence to the subject only yesterday we saw a ganc pang of boys in eager E pursuit U r suit sult of a nest of fled fledglings glinis and we could U ut t instinctively almost cry out boys spare the birds boys of a larger growth however are more mischievous often in coming into the city we meet a gang of city loafers with their dogs and guns sallying forth to destroy the birds or frighten them from their habitations in the grove upon some quiet farm retreat did farmers know or appreciate the real worth to themselves of the birds thus driven away they would expel the intruding hunters as they would duld ouid so many horse thieves the value of birds to the farmer the fruit grower and the tile gardener is now almost uni ver vers verbally ally sally admitted by all observing persons for it is known that insects injurious to vegetation increase in proportion to the decrease of woodlands and the songsters song C inhabiting them farmers are S sometimes ome times at the expense of hiring biring persons ons to search out and destroy the cut an and rex yer wire worms from their corn fiel fields 9 t the he caterpillars from the orchard borers fr from the their I 1 r peach trees and the various bugs and insects which feed upon u their vines and bushes but a few nests of thirds c ards I 1 will do the work cheaper and more effectually who has not observed the robins following the plow or hoe and wondered at the vast n number umber of worms and grubs which they bear to their little family in a neigh neighboring borin tree P L their keen sense of or hearing aids aids in d detecting the grub gnawing at the roots of plants beneath beneat the surface it is stated in andersons Ander sons sona recreations that a cautious observer having found a nest of young jays remarked that each of these birds while yet very young consumed at least fifteen veri verb full sized grubs gru s of the vitis a chafer injurious to the vine in one day and of course would require many more of a smaller size say that on an average all consumed twenty a vach piece ece these for the five make one hundred each of the parents consume s sax say fifty so that the pair and family devour two undred hundred every day this in three months amounts to twenty t thousand in one season abut but as the grub continues in that state four seasons this single pair with their family alone without reckoning their descendants after the first year would destroy eight thousand grubs let us suppose that the half of these insects that is forty thousand are females and it is known that they usually lay jay about two hundred eggs each it will appear that no less than eight millions have been destroyed or prevented from being hatched b by y the labors tabors of a single family of jays it was a shortsighted short sighted policy which led people t in many localities at no very distant period to enact laws calculated to nearly exterminate certain species of birds by awarding awarding a bounty or premium for their destruction A it is now pretty well established that some of these same birds notwithstanding an occasionally thieving visit to the corn field or orchard are very useful in exterminating vermin vincent rollar speaking of the crow davs it was between the plants and as soon as it sees one that has begun to wither it approaches it with a joyful spring digs with its sharp sharp bill deep into the ground near the plant and knows so well how bow to seize its prey that it draws it forth and swallows it almost in the same moment menti menth they do the same thing in the meadows which we sometimes see almost covered with them burfort buffon in speaking of a certain species of grackle similar to our crow black bird says the isle of bourbon where these birds were unknown was overrun with locusts which had been unfortunately introduced from madagascar their eggs having been imported in the soil with some plants which were brought from that that island the ile governor general and the deliberated seriously on the means of extirpating these noxious insects and for this purpose caused several pairs of indian grackle to be introduced in the island this plan promised to succeed but unfortunately tuna tely some of the colonists seeing the birds eagerly thrusting their bills into the earth of the newly sown fields imagined that they were in quest of grain and reported that the birds instead of proving beneficial would wood ie be highly detrimental to the countr country on the part of the biri birl birds it was argued that they raked the new ploughed sloughed hed grounds not for the sake of df the grain but for the insects and were therefore beneficial they were however proscribed by the council and in iff the space of two hours after the sentence was passed against them not a grackle was to be found in the island this prompt execution was followed by a speedy repentance the locusts gained the ascendancy and the people who only viewed the present beretti d the lost list of the glackler pr gr ackle ackler shortly afterwards a few pairs were again introduced trod and their preservation and breeding made a state affair the laws held out protection to them and the physicians on their part declared their flesh to be unwholesome the grackles graceles gr ackles accordingly multiplied and the locusts were destroyed the whippoorwill and night hawk destroy vast numbers of nocturnal insects including the codling mth an especial enemy of the fruit grower both of these birds are often heard after nightfall in the vicinity of orchards where they seize not only the millers and and larger insects but by means of wide mouths which they keep open when in quest of food they collect many small insects such as gnats zim NIM them b by constantly barting darting through swarms of the night hawk often darts from aJ distance istance upon large insects making in its swoop a noise not unlike that produced by the twang of a viol string nutting states that one of these birds on dissection was wag found to contain insects in its crop consisting mostly of small beetles we are fully persuaded that no enlightened farmer who is convinced of even a tithe of the benefit he derives from the friendly visits of these cheerful labor labur laborers ers will permit them to be destroyed on his bis premises but rather invite A them by means of hedges thick shrubs and low trees to make their habitations near him calling him from his morning slumbers by a flood of song poured in the open casement and ever ready with their inspiring notes to cheer him in his bis daily toil american agriculturist |
