STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



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to encourage and favor the increase of the starling, a bird about the size, and in char- 

 acter allied with our meadow lark. A well-known Hamburg horticulturist, John Boot, 

 tried the experiment of cultivating the starling, and with complete success. I give his 

 statement in nearly his own words : ten years since the canker-worm (one of the Euro- 

 pean names of this insect), visited his grounds, destroyed whole inclosures of rhodo- 

 dendrons and coniferjE. His own field suffered also. All artificial means to destroy 

 them failed. He bethought him of the starlings, caused a hundred nest-boxes to be 

 constructed, all of which were occupied by these birds, and in the course of one season 

 the nuisance was abated. Their modus operandi is to search for these vermin just as 

 they near the surface of the earth to emerge as beetles. The starling summarily hauls 

 him out, and that is his last of earth. Mr. Boot encouraged the starling to increase, 

 until he had two hundred pairs on his place, and it is now very rarely that he finds one 

 of the worms in his grounds. His observations of ten years and his very careful 

 generalization of these repeated notes lead to these results : The starling is on the wing 

 sixteen of the twenty-four hours, and feed their young twenty times in the day, visiting 

 their nest to carry food six hundred times in all. As the starlings have three broods in 

 the season and rear about twenty young, he estimates that his two hundred pairs of these 

 birds, with their young, would be able to destroy, if there were so many, fifty-seven 

 millions of these worms in a single season. 



I have nearly exhausted the limits, but before leaving the subject I will give you a 

 very brief account of the interesting movements and discussions on the subject of bird 

 protection now agitating the cantons of Switzerland. 



In March, 1869, the Confederative Council of Switzerland had under discussion the 

 question of special legislation for the protection of birds. The movement was initiated 

 by the Grand Council of the canton of Tessin, praying for a general enactment through- 

 out Switzerland and also an international uniformity of law for the protection of useful 

 birds, their own agriculture being in a suffering condition, owing to the unrestricted 

 slaughter of birds. Before adopting any such international union, the Confederative 

 Council addressed inquiries to the several local governments of each canton with the 

 view to ascertain what local laws were now in force and how far a general uniformity 

 of law was desired. These answers have been carefully preserved and made public. 

 Some points they disclose are not without interest to us who are yet novices in the matter 

 of bird-legislation. All of the great cantons but one, and all but three in all, have 

 their own cantonal laws, but all of these vary in many important respects. In one, 

 Zurich, all usefnl\AxA% are protected, and the magistrates having decided that all birds 

 are useful, the whole feathered tribe are under the protection of the law. In different 

 cantons different birds are outlawed or protected. Ravens, crows, magpies, even star- 

 lings, sparrows, linnets, ring-ouzels, and other birds of admitted value, are under the 

 ban in here or there a single canton, and protected in all the others. In some, birds are 

 protected all the year; in others, only during a certain portion. In some a landed pro- 

 prietor may shoot the birds on his own grounds, and in another he may not. Generally 

 the fine is fifty francs for every offense, but in some it is as low as five francs. A few 

 punish with imprisonment aggravated violation of law. Some punish the parents for 

 the offenses of their children. In several cantons, the value of birds and the sin of 

 destroying them is made by law a required study in their public-school instruction. 



The Bund, an agricultural journal published in Berne, concludes an able article on 

 the subject of the importance of birds, the enormous losses occasioned by insects, and 

 the incompleteness of Swiss legislation, in the following forcible manner: 



" These enormous losses occasioned by insects and the cost of the ineffectual 

 attempts to collect and destroy these vermin can all be obviated, if man will only not 

 destroy the equipoise of, nature, and not from wantonness, fastidiousness, prejudice or 

 superstition, or other equally worthless grounds, persecute and exterminate the natural 

 destroyers of insects, mice, etc., but, on the contrary, give them the greatest possible 

 protection, and tender to them nourishment and care during the inclement season. We 

 rejoice that our own cantonal laws for the protection of birds are so generally observed, 

 but it is to be regretted that the spirit of these excellent laws has not been more gener- 

 ally made the subject of instruction in our public schools. We yet more regret that in 

 many respects our legislation is still so incomplete. For instance, when we see that so 

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