THE BIRD QUESTION. 



BY DR. Wm. LeBARON, STATE ENTOMOLOGIST OF ILLINOIS. 



In the course of the discussioDS which have tuken place at our horticultural 

 meetings, a number of topics more or less intimately connected with my own 

 department of practical entomology, have sprung up, and have elicited a good 

 deal of interest, but have generally been very partially and imperfectly treated. 



One of these subjects is that which is commonly referred to as the bird ques- 

 tion. It has appeared to me that it might be interesting and useful to take a 

 more comprehensive view of this subject than has been ordinarily done, for 

 the purpose of determining what is the trae relation which birds bear to hort- 

 icultural and agricultural interests. 



"We are liable to form erroneous opinions of things from the imperfection of 

 our knowledge concerning them, and fully as often, perhaps, from taking a 

 partial or one-sided view of them, as they may happen to affect our own per- 

 sonal interests. And so it is with the bird question. One man, with refined 

 tastes and a strong affectional nature, and who, we will suppose, has never been 

 much annoyed by these creatures, regards birds as one of the chief ornaments 

 of his grounds, and one of the delights of his life. If his birds should leave 

 him or be destroyed, he would feel it as an irreparable loss, an aching void in 

 his surroundings. He looks at them from the sentimental or romantic point 

 of view. In his mind they have become indissolubly associated with the varied 

 and pleasing changes of the seasons; they usher in the vernal year; they en- 

 liven the summer solstice ; and as they flit silently past, in their changed and 

 plain plumage, on their southw^ard migrations, in the fall of the year, they 

 seem to be in perfect harmony with the falling leaf and the sombre tints of 

 autumn. 



Another man, not necessarily less refined, perhaps, but who may have a some- 

 what sharper eye to the utilities than to the amenities of life, and who may 

 have turned his attention to the cultivation of some of those smaller and more 

 delicate fruits which are so very tempting to birds, as well as men, or who may 

 have happened to plant his corn-field along side some bushy meadow where 

 blackbirds naturally congregate, finding himself much annoyed, and, it may 

 be, seriously damaged by these creatures, regards them in a very different light. 

 If he ever had any partiality for birds it will to become rapidly dissipated; 

 their charms will be much less apparent. In short, he will regard them as 

 nuisances. 



Let us look at this subject a few moments; first, in its general aspects, and 

 then narrow down our inquiry to the practical points at issue. Every one 

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