ANNUAL MEETING AT LEXINGTON. 289 



else be would never have said it. That he himself is not scratching- 

 the earth with a stick for a plow is solely because other men could 

 read and think. They worked too, and while they worked they 

 thought, and it is chietiy to have men think while they work that we 

 would have them read. 



Xo doubt it was some poetry reading plowman who first thought 

 that birds were not created for boys to stone and rob their nests. He 

 thought and he observed and then he wondered, but it was not until a 

 long time had passed, while men were reading and thinking, ere one 

 could write and publish boldly to the world such thoughts as these by 

 Prof. Perkins, of Vermont. " Probably few persons are aware or have 

 any idea of what might result if birds were all destroyed and other 

 things remained as they are." In Vermont alone are some 800 species 

 of Lepidopteroiis insects [moths and butterflies] and in the United 

 States 4,000. 



But let us confine ourselves to it, if the number is 800 the increase 

 would be like this ; each female lays 350 eggs on the average, but say 

 300. jS'ow say in 1881 there is but one pair of each species — this would 

 make 300 times 800, equals 240,000 eggs, developing into as many cater- 

 pillars. If half are females, next year would give us 120,000 pair, whose 

 product for 1882 would be thirty-six millions. Thus, in five years, we 

 shall have one quadrillion, 215 trillions, or 200 millions of caterpillars 

 per one acre in Vermont, (all these in the fifth year from one pair of 

 each). And each pair is here supposed to reproduce but one time per 

 year, whereas several do so often, I think, continues Prof. Perkins, 

 "as it now is, not one Qgg in thousands ever reaches maturity, and the 

 great agent of destruction is the bird. If there is a race of beings on 

 this earth that should be protected, it is the birds. Vengeance swift 

 and terrible descends on those who will not learn that they are neces- 

 sary to all agricultural pursuits." Thus far speaks Prof. Perkins : But 

 not only he, all authorities who have observed, and have studied cause 

 and effect here, say the same. These assertions are the result of long, 

 profound and close observation. Knowing this, how shall we regard 

 those town loafers who sneak along the by-ways, gun on shoulder ready 

 to blow the life out of any feathered friend of man they chance to see. 

 I have known men of this kind — men who seemed never to do one use- 

 ful act, whose very calling was a daily injury to these fellows, and 

 whose highest pleasure was in bird hunting. Strange contradictions 

 in human life, while some are doing good at all times both when work- 

 ing or playing, there are others whose very business is a curse to man 



H. E. — 19 



