STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 37 



and the life of ages. Work embalms the life of nations in literatures, in 

 whose crypts are scattered seeds of thought that only need the light to 

 spread into harvests of bread for living generations. This is Avork, and 

 this is its mission. 



To thus work is to come into fellowship with all the great and the 

 good, the world over. A life of earnest, honest work brings us near to 

 God. For God works ; Jesus Christ works ; the redeemed man works. 



Blessings on and blessed be the workman. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ORNITHOLOGY. 



Prof. S. A. Forbes, of Normal University, read the following paper, 

 which attracted special attention, as indicating the commencement of 

 very important and much-needed work: 



THE FOOD OF BIRDS. 

 BY PROF. S. A. FORBES, OF NORMAL UNIVERSITY. 



It has become a truism of these times that Nature is the most helpful 

 of all allies. If a modern man has before him any difficult undertaking, 

 he tries, first of all,' to discern what forces of Nature already tend in the 

 direction of his purpose, and then what others can be diverted to his 

 service. He fights by direction, by generalship, and never levels his own 

 weapons until he has exhausted every art at enlisting other combatants 

 against his enemies. The first savage who armed his naked hand with a 

 stick or a stone, or interposed a shield against the blow of his adversary, 

 ignorantly followed this principle, and railroads and telegraphic cables 

 are to be reckoned among its higher applications. There is no wonder, 

 therefore, that horticulturists should have asked, long ago, "How does 

 Nature fight the bugs?" But we are not yet wholly awake to the signifi- 

 cance of the answers. 



The principal natural checks upon insect life — apart from those 

 changes of season and other general influences to which all animals are 

 subject — are birds, audacious insects and parasites. There is no occasion 

 to question which of these is the most potent, and I believe that most 

 persons will agree with me that birds are a hundred times more destructive 

 of insects than other insects are — because birds eat beneficial insects as 

 well as injurious ones; and if we follow the advice of our entomologists, 

 and import birds and encourage parasitic and predacious species, it is 

 evident that we must make a careful study of the food of our birds, in 

 order to assure ourselves that our insect friends will not be devoured as 

 fast as they can be multiplied. 



It seems to me evident, therefore, that an intelligent and scientific 

 horticulture will include a careful study of the relations of the birds to 

 the labors of the orchard and the garden; will devise measures to encour- 

 age the beneficial species, to exterminate the injurious, and to substitute, 

 in as many cases as possible, the more valuable for the less valuable kinds. 



