278 BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



ourselves from a small evil at the expense of a greater ; it is 

 in fact securing the fruit by the sacrifice of the tree. There 

 is no question that we are now suffering severely in conse- 

 quence of this folly. No kind of cultivation is affected to any 

 considerable extent by the depredations of birds, and if it 

 should be, means may be devised to prevent them. Not so 

 with the insects and their ravages ; the fate of the locust, the 

 apple, the pear, and many other trees, shows, that if insects 

 fasten themselves upon one of them, we must give it up as 

 lost, for all that we at present know. Surely, then, of two 

 evils we should submit to the one which may possibly be pre- 

 vented, rather than invite and encourage one over which we 

 have no control. 



A slight calculation will show what an amount of service 

 birds are able to render. Wilson makes the computation, that 

 each red-winged blackbird devours on an average fifty grubs a 

 day ; so that a single pair, in four months, will consume more 

 than twelve thousand. Allowing that there are a million pairs 

 of these birds in New England in summer, which is but a 

 moderate estimate, they would destroy twelve thousand mil- 

 lions. Let any one consider what an immense injury that 

 number of insects would do, and this would be sufficiently 

 striking to show how much we are indebted to the labors of 

 these birds. But the computation may be greatly extended, 

 for many insects have young by the hundred ; beside cutting 

 off the existing destroyers, they are prevented from multiply- 

 ing ; and when we consider what myriads of birds there are, 

 constantly and efficiently engaged in this service, it gives us an 

 impression, beyond the power of calculation to reach, of the 

 astonishing manner in which the increase of insects is kept 

 down, simply by sparing the lives of their natural destroyers ; 

 and this, it must be remembered, is the only means of prevent- 

 ing their increase and reducing their formidable numbers. No 

 other remedy that, man can apply will reach the evil ; this is 

 the vocation of birds ; and if, for the sake of removing a small 

 evil, we will not permit them to live and labor in it, we must 

 not complain when the natural consequences come. 



