Bird Notes and News 



115 



Economic Ornithology. 



THE SCARCITY OF BIRDS. 



All country dwellers noticed how the birds 

 were suffering in the bitter weather of last 

 winter, but the extent of the disaster that 

 befell them has never been so apparent as 

 it is now during the interval between the 

 departure of the summer migrants and the 

 arrival of our visitors from the north. Not 

 for a great many years has the country been 

 so denuded of the familiar birds of the 

 garden and the hedgerow as it is to-day. 

 Blackbirds and thrushes, hedge-sparrows 

 and robins may be counted by twos and 

 threes where, in former autumns, there were 

 hundreds, and the tits and Jenny wrens, 

 birds one had come to consider proof agiinst 

 the severe frost, must have succumbed in 

 immense numbers to the combined effect 

 of cold and hunger. They have had a 

 whole sea.son in which to recuperate, all of 

 them are notoriously prolific in eggs and 

 young, and yet their scarcity is more marked 

 now than it was when the frost and east 

 wind abated last spring. 



This is not due to any indiscriminate 

 campaign of boys against eggs of the sort that 

 was freely and foolishly suggested at the 

 beginning of the birds' nesting season. 

 IMisdirected efforts of that kind were, happily, 

 only sporadic, and did not materialise at all 

 in most districts ; it would rather appear 

 that, apart from the actual destruction 

 caused by the winter, those birds that 

 sur\aved the ordeal began the season with 

 their vitality much lowered and have not 

 reproduced their kind with anything like 

 their usual freedom. With the breeding- 

 stock so much depleted, the occurrence of 

 a second severe winter would go near to 

 emptying the country of these resident 

 birds, that depend, whollj^ or in part, upon 

 insect food. 



It is worth while to notice two results of 

 this great destruction that have already 

 become very apparent. The first was a 

 plague of caterpillars that, in many districts, 

 almost stripped the trees of their leaves 

 at the beginning of the summer. These 

 caterpillars emerged from eggs, laid in the 

 early spring by moths of several species, the 



females of wliich are mostly apterous. In a 

 normal year the tits and wTens search for 

 these .spider-like females with tireless energy, 

 and, by devouring them before their eggs are 

 laid, cut off the supply of caterpillars at the 

 source. Judging by the number of insects 

 that must have survived to come to maturity 

 this year, there is a prospect of great havoc 

 amongst leaves and blossoms next spring, 

 unless, as may happen, migration fills up the 

 depleted ranks of the insect eaters. . . . 



The second most marked result of the 

 destruction among the birds is of a different 

 sort, and has caused most gardeners to rub 

 their hands with pleasure, for there has never 

 been a season when the fruit has needed so 

 little protection. . . . 



Not unnaturally, in these circumstances 

 the average gardener is crowing over the 

 advocatus avium, and pointing, with triumph, 

 to his orchards. He may usefully be 

 reminded of a remark of Sir Robert Walpole 

 when the people were rejoicing at a popular 

 declaration of war. " They may ring the 

 bells now," said the sage old statesman ; 

 "they will soon be wringing their hands ! " 

 It is better to lose even a considerable pro- 

 portion of your fruit from the attacks of 

 birds than to have none to lose owing to the 

 worm i' the bud. 



" She's a rum 'un, is Natur'," said Mr. 

 Squeers in a philosophic moment, and it is 

 unsafe to indulge in prophecies where she is 

 concerned ; but, judging from the dispropor- 

 tion between our insect foes and our bird 

 friends, it seems probable that next summer 

 vnLl prove a trying one for the gardener, and 

 it might be worth his while to encourage, so 

 far as the Food Controller will permit, such 

 garden birds as have escaped the destruction 

 of 1917.— The Times, Oct. 9, 1917. 



SPARROW 

 THEIR 



CLUBS " AND 

 EFFECTS. 



There is a serious diminution in the 

 numbers of many birds, which might easily 

 become alarming if it were not for the 



