242 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



was set upon them ; consequently, throughout Prussia the war against them 

 was carried on so successfully that at the end of two years not only were 

 the sparrows extinct but also the cherries and most other fruit. The trees 

 were covered with caterpillars and completely stripped of leaves ; insects 

 had increased to an alarming extent, for other birds had been frightened 

 away by the measures taken to destroy the sparrows. " The great King," 

 remarks Tschudi, from whose article this anecdote is obtained, "was 

 obliged to confess to himself that he had not the power to alter that which 

 had been ordained by a greater King than he, and that all attempts at 

 violence and wrong were sooner or later avenged. He retracted his de- 

 cree, and was even obliged, at considerable expense, to import sparrows 

 from afar ; for these, being birds of obstinately sedentary habits, would 

 never nave returned of their own accord." 



Here is a practical test, on a somewhat extended scale, which fur- 

 nishes indubitable evidence of the value of birds as insect destroyers. But 

 we have recent evidence on this point on a still more extended scale. 

 The recent demand for the plumage of birds for ornamental purposes, as 

 well as their flesh for the table, has caused an immense slaughter of the 

 small birds in Austria, France, and other parts of Southern Europe, and 

 also in Algiers; and to such an extent is this carried, that it is said in a 

 single Roccolo in Lombardy sometimes 15,000 birds are captured in a day. 

 In this way millions are destroyed annually, and as a natural consequence 

 the insects, in the sections these birds visit, have increased so apparently 

 that the authorities have been compelled to interpose and order their pro- 

 tection. Even in Algiers, where, under French rule, agriculture has been 

 extending, the evil effect of this wholesale destruction is said to be so 

 apparent in the increase of noxious insects that efforts are being made to 

 prevent it. 



Thus, in every case, where the facts can be ascertained, we find that 

 a general destruction of birds is followed by a marked increase of obnox- 

 ious insects ; that even those who lay no claim to scientific knowledge 

 have readily connected the cause of the increase of the latter with the 

 destruction of the former. 



Tschudi remarked that the Italian mania having penetrated into those 

 cantons without prohibitory laws, the effect was perceptible even on the 

 opposite side of the Alps, in the increase of injurious insects in the fields 

 and woods, evidently from the destruction of the migratory birds which 

 annually visited them from the Italian side. 



But we have given, in a recent number of The Western Farm Jour- 

 nal, an account of a very interesting experiment in reference to this mat- 

 ter, which is well worth the attention of fruit-growers. The writer states 

 that he has, for the past two years, been experimenting, not only in pro- 

 tecting, but also in feeding the birds ; that during the spring and summer 

 of 1875 '^^ f'^d something over twenty-five bushels of oats, also keeping 

 water in a trough for them to drink. During last summer the amount fed 

 was still larger; no firing of a gun being allowed in the orchard. The 

 birds ate and destroyed some twenty or thirty bushels of apples, also some 

 cherries. The return for this outlay and kindness, as stated by the writer, 



