l6 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



because they protect his crops. To him they are birds — a 

 group of animals which attract him, and they are hving creatures 

 with a right to exist, part of Nature's great scheme. Therefore 

 he wishes to protect them, and we should bear this in mind, 

 when striving to teach the young idea. If we get the child to 

 have sympathy with the wild creature simply because it is a 

 wild creature and not because it may mean something to him 

 in £ s. d.^ in the future, we have an embryo bird protector. 

 The love of birds will last. 



The man who studies birds for their own sakes, and without 

 ulterior motives, has the right to criticise those who merely 

 view birds from the economic outlook. Unprejudiced, he can 

 estimate their worth by study of food and habits. The advocate 

 for as well as the would-be persecutor may be misled by his 

 zeal. The agriculturist and economist divide birds roughly 

 into three groups — the seed-eaters, condemned as a whole, the 

 insect-eaters, looked upon as friends, and the predacious or 

 carnivorous species, viewed with approval or disfavour accord- 

 ing to whether they are devouring vegetable or animal feeders. 

 Such division is not merely misleading, it is unfair. Grain-eat- 

 ing, nominally vegetarian, " hard-billed " birds, even the Sparrow 

 and Greenfinch, are not invariably raiding cereals ; not only do 

 they usually feed their young on insects, but they take the seeds 

 of numerous troublesome weeds. Many, for instance the Linnet, 

 Goldfinch and Redpolls, almost confine their attention to weeds 

 or the seeds of trees. Insectivorous birds, even the useful 

 Redbreast, Wren, Hedge-Sparrow and Tits, though they 

 seldom touch vegetable food, do not discrimmate between 

 useful and harmful insects. Insects, or rather the many 

 invertebrates upon which so-called insectivorous birds feed, 

 may be divided into just the same rough groups — useful, harm- 

 ful and indifferent ; many lepidopterous caterpillars feed upon 

 noxious weeds, many hymenopterous and dipterous flies are 

 parasites upon troublesome insects. The bird kills the useful 



