SHALL WE PAY OUR DEBT? 365 



becoming baffled by the lights of cities. They are 

 especial sufferers through becoming confused and 

 beating themselves against light-houses. A few 

 years ago the "bodies of five hundred and ninety- 

 five warblers were picked up one morning around 

 the Fire Island light-house off Long Island. Storms 

 such as I previously described on Lake Michigan 

 are especially disastrous to them in either their 

 northern or southern migration. 



I hope I have gone into sufficient detail to prove 

 to anyone reading this book the sum of our in- 

 debtedness to the birds. The question now be- 

 comes: how can we pay our obligation? How can 

 we so protect and increase the birds as to raise 

 their numbers again to such flocks as I knew in 

 childhood, when the insect pests, which we fight 

 each year through an expenditure of millions and 

 much valuable time, were unknown, the work of 

 the birds being sufficient to insure magnificent 

 crops of large and small fruits regularly every sea- 

 son? So the question arises as to the manner in 

 which we can best help ourselves by helping the birds 

 to feed and flock with us as they did formerly. 



It appeals to me that the biggest stroke which 

 could be accomplished in their favour at one blow 

 would be to decree and sternly carry out the com- 

 plete extermination of the English sparrow. It 

 is absurd sentiment, based on ignorance of the 

 habits and characteristics of this little villain, which 

 allows it to go unmolested anywhere. A flock of 



