VtUity of Birds in ktfirbying Infers, ^^9 



' ixrete engaged the greater part of the day ; fay twclrfe hburs* 

 Taking the medium, therefore, of fifty times in an hoiir, 

 it appeared that a fingle pair of thefe birds took from the 

 cabbage, fallad, beans, peas, and other vegetables in the 

 garden, at lead fix hundred infe^ls in the courfe of one day. 

 This calculation proceeds upon the fuppolition, that the two 

 birds took each only a fingle infe6l each time. But it is 

 highly probable they often took feveral at a time. 



'^ The fpecies of certhia of which I am fpeaking getierally 

 hatches twice during the courfe of the fummer. They are 

 very numerous about Philadelphia, and in other parts of the 

 United States. 



" The fa6t juft related is well calculated to flidw the 

 importance of attending to the prefervatron of fome of 

 our native birds. The efculent vegetables of d whole 

 garden may, perhaps, be preferved from the depredations of 

 different fpecies of infects by ten or fifteen pair of thefe fmall 

 birds: and, independently of this elTential fervice, they are 

 an extremely agreeable companion to man \ for their note is 

 pleafing. A gentleman, in the neighbourhood of Philadel- 

 phia, thinks he has already reaped much advantage from the 

 fervices of thefe wrens, i^bout his fruit trees he has placed 

 a number of boxes for their nefts. In thefe boxes they very 

 readily breed, and feed themfelves and their young with the 

 infects which are fo deftru6live to the various kinds of fruit 

 trees, and other vegetables. 



'^^ V. The fervices of the ibis. In devouring the reptiles of 

 Egypt, are well known. They procured to this bird a vene- 

 ration and regard which form an interefting fa6l in its hiftory, 

 and in the hiftory of human fupcrftitions. The fl:orks are, 

 perhaps, not lefs ufeful. Pliny tells us, that thefe birds were 

 fo much regarded for deftroying ferpents, that, in TheflTaly, 

 in his age, it was a capital crime to kill them, and that the 

 punilhment was the fame as that for murder. Virgil hints 

 at the ufefulnefs of the ftork when he defcribes it as * lonffis 

 Invifa colubris.' In Holland, even in our times, they go 

 wild, protected by the government, from a fenfe of their ufe- 

 fulnefs in the way I have mentioned. 



'^ In Britain, if it were not for the herons, and fome other 

 H % birda 



