1883.] UTILITY OF BIRDS IN AGRICULTURE. 79 



reasonable ? Pages and pages of papers and magazines have been 

 used in disputes as to whether or no the crow was beneficial or 

 injurious to agriculture. To me, at least, in view of the above 

 generalized statement, borne out by facts as shown, the answer is 

 plain enough. 



Let us take another example: On the other hand, the robin is 

 a bird which, like the crow, has had pages upon pages written upon 

 the question as to whether it was beneficial or injurious to the agri- 

 culturist and farmer. It is certainly true that in the summer 

 season the robin raids upon the fruits of the garden, both those 

 which grow upon the vines and small plants bearing them, and 

 also upon the trees, and fills himself with the richest and most 

 luscious that he can find. Not only does he do this, but brings his 

 whole family with him to partake of it also. Now the question 

 has been raised here, too, as I have said, is the robin beneficial or 

 injurious to the farmer ? Of course in answering the question we 

 must look fairly at both sides and then find the difference between 

 them, the side upon which this difference stands outweighing the 

 other for good or evil. We will suppose that in the fruit season 

 the robins appear in large numbers and literally besiege the trees 

 and plants containing fruit of some farmer. If, in consequence, 

 the farmer loses everything, then the crop is a failure, as it would 

 be in a drouth or bad year otherwise. Now supposing he loses 

 part, say two-fifths, or even one-half, he yet reaps an average crop 

 — since the insects might have spoiled as much as this — and thus 

 gives to the hirds what he would otherwise lose by the insects or 

 some other means. Let us see if he gets any return for this ex- 

 penditure. As the crow was eminently a grain-loving and grain- 

 feeding bird, so the robin is an insect-eating and insect-feeding 

 bird ; being such, it prefers insects in their larval, pupal, and adult 

 stage to any other food. This statement has been proven time and 

 again. Experiments have been made and observations recorded 

 that prove the truth of the following deduction, — from the pen of 

 a well-known ornithological writer. He says: "The prejudice 

 which some persons entertain against the robin is unreasonable. 

 ii'ew persons have any idea of the enormous — the literally incalcu- 

 lable — number of insects that robins eat every year. It has been 

 found, by careful and accurate observations, that a young robin in 

 the nest requires a daily supply of animal food equivalent to con- 

 siderably more than its own weight! When we remember that 



