224 From all Sources. 



From All Sources. 



WORK OF THE BIRDS.-ENOLAND SAVED FROM FORESTS 

 OF OAKS. 



" The disastrous effect on farmers that results from the reckless des- 

 truction of Inrds for so unworthy a pTirpose as millinery was dealt uith by 

 Mr James Buckland in an interesting paper which he read at the Roj'al 

 Colonial Institute yesterday. Birds, insects, animals, and plants are, of 

 course, constantly striving to increase their numbers, but the creatures that 

 feed on them operate continually to check their increase. Were not bii-ds, 

 for instance, to eat acorns Great Britain would eventmlly be full of oaks, 

 for all other trees would be ci-owded out. If ever}' Robin died a natural 

 death in its old age and if its eggs were hatched out, in time every square 

 foot of the United Kingdom would be packed with Robins. 



Bird life by reason of its predominating insect diet, is the most indis- 

 pensable balancino force in Nature. No one can tell what far-reaching 

 results might follow the extermination of a single species of bird, for it is 

 probable that the food preference of each species is so distinctive that no 

 other could exactly fill its place. But for the trees the insects would perish ; 

 but for insects the birds would perish, and but for the birds the trees would 

 perish. 



A great increase of insects and enormous damage by them invariably 

 follows wholesale destruction of wild bird life In New Zealand, owing to 

 the slaughter of birds, Mr. Buckland has seen countless billions of caterpillars 

 move in a solid mass across cultivated land, devouring every green thing in 

 their march. Even railway trains were stopped by the immensity of the 

 number of these crawling atoms. 



At the last six feather sales in London there have been sold the skins 

 of 166,000 Kingfishers. Supposing that each one of these ate— at a very 

 conservative estimate —150 noxious insects daily, over 7,600,000,000 insect 

 pasts that ought to have been destroyed by birds were saved in one year. 

 This estimate does not take into account the unrestricted increase of these 

 7,600,000.000 pests. Every one of these Kingfishers was worth its weight in 

 gold to the human race. Its skin sold for Sid. ! 



It has been calculated in the United States that the annual loss caused 

 there by ravages of insect and rodent pests which the birds would exterminate 

 were their working power not reduced, totals a thousand million dollars. 



As long as there is a demand for contraband plumage there will be 

 someone ready to supply it. The only remedy is to stop the demand. This 

 the Plumage Bill seeks to do. The Bill proposes to prohibit the sale, hire, 

 or exchange of plumage or skin of any species of wild bird individuals which 

 have had their habitat during the whole or part of the year within any part 

 of his Majesty's Dominicuis outside the United Kingdom or in any British 

 Protectorate or in the island of Cyprus."— From the Stamlard 14/6/, 13, per 

 Rev. G. H. Ray nor. 



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