302 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Nov. i, iS86, 



racy for these figures for the vahie of flour like every 

 thing else, fluctuates 'and few or no mills are run 

 to their full capacity uight and day all the ye.ir 

 round ; still my figures are not far wrong and I would 

 ask where is the profit in destroying our small birds ? 

 First the Hessian fly attacked the wheat, a small 

 insect which deposited its eggs in the first joint of 

 the straw above ground and just as the wheat began 

 to ripen, the larvw cut the joint and the crop was 

 ruined and the remnant of grain left uninjured could 

 hardly be cradled or cut owing to the straggling 

 straws; then came the midge, a small fly which de- 

 posited its eggs in the ear of the grain, just after 

 it had blossomed and the wheat was destroyed ni the 

 milk; and what to all appearance seemed a magni- 

 ficient field of wheat on examination was found to 

 contain not wheat, but millions of little red maggots. 

 The cultivation of wheat has had to be abandoned in 

 the Genesee valley, this is the result of destroy- 

 ing the equilibrium of Nature by felling all the 

 forest and killing all the birds. The Hessian fly is 

 said to have found its way to England, but fortun- 

 ately England may still be called a "sylvan " country, 

 and" we are too fond of our feathered songster.? to 

 destroy them. The destruction of insectivorous birds 

 is to Ceylon a very serious one; this season in Uva 

 lias been most favourable for paddy, yet the crop 

 reaped has been very light, all caused by " poochies," 

 but what I plead most for are my pet humming- 

 birds, my swallows, my cocos and my sparrows. 

 The liumming-bird is foiind only in America, and in 

 no other part of the world ; there are a great many 

 varieties and all are birds of passage ; they are found 

 from Terra del Fuego to Hudson's Bay, to the very 

 utmost limit of flowering shrubs and from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific. Humbodt in his " Travels in South 

 America," mentions having seen the humming-bird 

 in some of the highest passes of the Chilian or 

 Peruvian Andes : they flit with the flowers, and their 

 favourite food is in the earliest Spring blossoms. 

 I knew so soon as I saw the first blossom open 

 on the Miserion, the Finns Japonica, and the sweet 

 scented currant, that my little birds were not 

 far off. I do not think any lady would ever again 

 wear a humming-bird in her hat or as ornament 

 had she seen them, as I have done in Canada, after 

 the long cold winter flitting from flower to flower, 

 fearlessly entering the breakfast room, flashing about 

 brilliant as emeralds and rubies set in burnished 

 gold, sipping the honey from the hyacinth or Spring- 

 flowers on the breakfast table; constantly returning 

 to their tiny nest under the window to feed their 

 two little fledgelings, for they lay but two eggs and 

 if the present ruthless slaughter is to be continued 

 it will not take long to exterminate them. It is a 

 mistake to suppose that the humming-bird lives en- 

 tirely on honey, they are also insectivorous, and as 

 such most valuable in a flower garden, but the de- 

 struction of the swallows is worse than all the others. 

 They are entirely insectivorous and do no harm to 

 anything. Look at the swallow skimming a paddy-field 

 or a wheat field, the swallow is the salvation of our 

 crops. In America they have been nearly exter- 

 minated to supply the Paris market, the color of the 

 common American swallow having been found to 

 match admirably some new colour or "Mode." It 

 used to be a sight worth seeing in American autumn 

 when the swallows were preparing for their flight 

 southwards, the old birds had probably had two 

 broods of little ones, during the summer. Old and young 

 in the autumn would collect on the ridges of houses 

 and barns but their favourite place of resting was 

 tlie telegraph wires, where they congregated in vast 

 numbers, taking occasional flights to see if the young 

 birds were strong enough on the wing to take their 

 southern flight; in one day they disappeared how, 

 when, or where, or if in the night no one knows. 

 The Americans blame the introduction of the English 

 sparriaw for driving away the native birds and also 

 say the sparrow destroys the blossom buds of the 

 orchard in Spring and the fiat has gone forth that 

 jack sparrow is to be exterminated, (if they can). 

 Fools, it is their own insatiable greed and the law 

 which is no law at all and protects nothing, but allows 

 (>vorvono to do as he pleases. Younught as well tcH one, 



it is the English sparrow has exterminated the Salmon 

 from every river and the trout from nearly every stream 

 and river in New England and New York. Mr. Downall 

 should aud must see to our Ceylon birds. A Sinhalese 

 goya will plough all day in his muddy paddy-field and 

 the coco is his companion li ':e the rook following 

 the plough picking up the grubs and slugs which 

 would otherwise destroy his crop 3. The goya may be 

 and often is hungry, but he will not kill liis coco birds 

 either to eat them or sell their feathers, and why should 

 the stranger or others be allowed to do so for any pur- 

 pose whatever, Here is an extract from the Sunday 

 Maijazine of June last; " In the State of Maine the 

 sparrows were ordered to be dastroyed ; the order was 

 carried into eft'ect, next year the crops and even green 

 trees were destroyed by citarpillars. At Auxeria a 

 similar order was given with precisely the same effect; 

 in the County of Oxford the farmers clubbed and des- 

 troj'ed all the sparrows and small birds on account of 

 the grain they destroyed, the clergyman alone protected 

 them iu his garden and encouraged them; he had that 

 season the only fruit crop 'u the parish and it was 

 unusually large, caterpillars and other pests literally 

 swarmed elsewhere. " My i.'riend, I a.sk, sparrow is an 

 impudent bird and will steal from my breakfast table, 

 but he is not particular; he will also eat cockroaches, 

 in the earl^ Spring ; iu cold countries he will feed on the 

 buds of trees in the garden or the orchard, but he 

 much prefers the buds on the trips of succulent 

 shoots to the blossom buds on the dry fruit spurs 

 of an apple tree. Our birds must be protected or 

 we will suft'er serious injury; that they destroy or live 

 on grain and young plants is to a certain extent 

 true, but they do infinitely more good than harm and I 

 can plead for my feathered friends as Burns did 

 for the field-mouse in his well known lines : 



" A daiman icker in a thrave 

 'S a sma request 



I '11 get a blessia wi' the lave 

 And never miss't. 



JAMES IRVINE. 



Ventnoe, Isle of Wight. — At Stcephill Cattle, an 

 Araucaria imhricata, about 40 feet high, lias had 

 nearly 40 cones, each twice the size of ordinary 

 coconuts, this season. A Chamwrops Fortimii, one 

 of Robert Fortune's palms introduced from China, 

 has beeu in full bloom throughout the season at East 

 Dene, near Ventnor. — Journal of lori'stn/. 



Future Cinchon.\ JBaejc Supplies. — Mr. John 

 Hamilton who is a very good authority on the cin- 

 chona market, writing to us from London, says : — "I 

 quite agree with you that Ceylon people have more to 

 fear from themselves than from any bark ship- 

 ments that Java may send for the next four years. 

 In view of the great fall in the value of bark, 

 Ceylon men should decide only to send their good 

 barks home, and keep their common kinds and 

 twigs packed away on the estates for shipment nine 

 months hence, or perhaps a year. It will all be 

 wanted some day, but a combined eflort is necessary 

 to relieve the present tension." This again would 

 seem to point to some such combination as is 

 indicated in the Syndicate. 



Jafina Coconut Planting. — If coconut planting were 

 not a success, and a decided success, we would really be 

 unable to account for the fact of the Catholic Mission 

 taking to it iu right good earnest. AVe know of one 

 coconut planter, the owner of almost half a dozen Pach- 

 chilapallai estates, whose views about coconut planting 

 are not very encouraging and who.se faith as to the pro- 

 ductiveness of existing estates on an appreciably remu- 

 uorative scale is rather shaky, liut he is po.ssibly mis- 

 taken. It is a conviction that coconut planting on an 

 extensive scale is a safe aud profitable investment aud 

 not one in which money is thrown away, that has in- 

 duced the local bead of the Catholic iMissioii to devote a 

 large sum out of his private means, as we are told, to 

 the purchase of a coconut estate and of 300 acres of 

 Crown land, part of which has been already cleared and 

 planted.— "Ceylon Patriot." 



