144 Short Communications y — 



grubs destroyed by rooks, and of caterpillars and their grubs 

 by the various small birds, must be annually immense. 

 Other tribes of birds, which feed on the wing, as swallows, 

 swifts, and martins, destroy millions of winged insects, which 

 would otherwise infest the air, and become insupportably 

 troublesome. Even the titmouse and bullfinch, usually sup- 

 posed to be so mischievous in gardens, have actually been 

 proved only to destroy those buds which contain a destruc- 

 tive insect. Ornithologists have of late determined these 

 facts to be true ; and parish officers would do well to con- 

 sider them, before they waste the public money in paying 

 rewards to idle boys and girls for the heads of dead birds, 

 which only encourages children and other idle persons in the 

 mischievous employment of fowling, instead of minding their 

 work or their schooling. But to return to the experiment 

 alluded to : on some very large farms in Devonshire, the 

 proprietors determined, a few summers ago, to try the result 

 of offering a great reward for the heads of rooks ; but the 

 issue proved destructive to the farms, for nearly the whole of 

 the crops failed for three succeeding years, and they have 

 since been forced to import rooks and other birds to re-stock 

 their farms with. 



Of late years the extensive destruction of the foliage and 

 young fruit in orchards by a species of caterpillar, has excited 

 the attention of the naturalist, and it has been found to have 

 arisen from the habit of destroying those small birds about 

 orchards which, if left unmolested, would have destroyed or 

 kept down these voracious insects. 



The splendid orchards of Mr. Curtis [proprietor of the 

 celebrated Botanical Magazine - ] of Glazenwood, near Cogges- 

 hall, in Essex, were last summer almost desolated by vermin 

 of this sort. There was, indeed, in June, scarcely one leaf 

 left on five or six hundred apple trees, so great was the de- 

 struction \ it was really quite a lamentable object to see such 

 fine fruit trees so destroyed. Mr. Curtis observed that he 

 was so convinced of the utility of preserving the birds, from 

 past experience and enquiry, that he would not permit one of 

 his servants so much as to scare them away. 



If facts be considered, they will point out the propriety of 

 only scaring sparrows, &c, from corn when they are actually 

 eating it when ripe, and of preserving birds through the 

 winter, rather than destroying them. Of all birds, game is 

 perhaps the most destructive to ripe crops; but even some 

 sorts of game destroy grubs in other seasons. {Essex Herald, 

 Nov. 18.) 



Our correspondent, Mr. Main, remarks, in the Gardener's 



