ECONOMIC ORNITHOLOGY 265 



We must look at these matters from the point of view 

 of a debtor and creditor account. 



Every one acknowledges that birds to get their food eat 

 and destroy things of various sorts. The things birds obtain for 

 food may be classed under three headings for economic con- 

 sideration : namely, (i) matter of use to man for food for himself 

 and his domesticated animals, such as seeds, fruit, roots, and 

 stock, and also those beneficial animals which act as natural 

 checks to those which are injurious ; (ii) other living creatures 

 that are directly harmful to us, such as injurious insects, ticks, 

 and mammals, weeds and weed seeds, and indirectly sickly game 

 birds, which can only breed degenerated stock ; (iii) carrion and 

 refuse, shore garbage, etc., as we find is done by Crows, Gulls, 

 Storks, and Vultures. 



Our game-birds form a separate group. Some of the latter, 

 such as Pheasants, do some harm to the farmer, the Capercaillie 

 to the forester ; but they also do much good, besides being 

 valuable for food and sport. 



Unfortunately we must acknowledge that the first section 

 is very important. Birds destroy our fruit, seeds, and crops, 

 damage our forest trees, attack our game-birds and poultry, and 

 even young stock ; they wantonly destroy young buds of 

 trees and bushes ; they destroy beneficial insects and distribute 

 injurious ones ; they disseminate weeds, and they are harmful 

 to our fisheries. But one must bear in mind the good they 

 do by destroying injurious insects, other birds and mammals. 



We must consider them individually from a debtor and 

 creditor point of view. If we do so with an open mind we shall 

 find a few on one side of the ledger, a few on the other ; but the 

 majority in which the account is nearly equally balanced. If we 

 look carefully into the last-named we shall find the subject 

 becomes a very complex one, and we are bound to confess that 

 we do not at present know sufficient about them to say whether 

 or not they are worth keeping on the books. 



As far as we go in Britain, there is only one way in which 

 we at present are likely to arrive at any definite general con- 

 clusion on this subject that can range outside that fatal error 

 in such cases, namely, " personal opinion." That is, by the 

 appointment of a departmental committee to collect all evidence 

 from all parts of the kingdom from farmers, gardeners, fruit- 

 growers, foresters, gamekeepers, and field ornithologists. Until 



