Bird Notes and News 



99 



Agricultural Department state in one 

 of their pamphlets that 16| millions 

 sterling are lost by farmers of Great 

 Britain in growing and getting rid of 

 weeds ; and the wide-scattering of thistle, 

 dandelion, and other flying seeds promises 

 a fine crop in this year of labour-scarcity. 

 Men are not to be had ; Goldfinches, 

 Linnets, Chaffinches, Buntings, and their 

 kin will be badly needed on the farm. 



The plague of insects, however, is 

 absolutely beyond the control of man 

 himself. He cannot find the grub hidden 

 in the earth or in the bud ; the caterpillar 

 devours and the blight smothers his 

 crop ; wireworm and leatherjacket reduce 

 his corn and grass to withered refuse ; the 

 maggot brings his fruit or legumes to 

 nothing. So incompetent is he even 

 to detect the ravagers that he will 

 ignorantly shoot the Rook or Starling 

 that is probing into the ground, or the 

 Tit that is searching out the grub, under 

 the delusion that yellowing plant and 

 blighted blossom are the work of the 

 very birds which are his only allies. The 

 sharp eye, the deft beak, the swift wing 

 needed to deal with the insect host are 

 given to the bird, and to the bird alone. 

 An agricultural paper recently remarked 

 that insects had increased since the passing 

 of the Bird Protection Acts, and there- 

 fore birds could be of no use, and in the 

 same breath alleged that man, with the 

 chemicals at his command, was master of 

 the insect plague and therefore needed 

 birds no longer. That is to say, he has 

 not been able, with the aid of countless 

 bird-labourers, to deal with the insect ; 

 but he thinks he could do so if left single- 

 handed. Such logic needs no comment. 



The cases in which birds have been 

 known directly and dramatically to stay 

 an insect or vermin invasion are numerous 

 and striking. Some of them are effectively 



told by Mr. James Buckland in his 

 paper " The Value of Birds to Man," 

 printed in the Report of the Smithsonian 

 Institution (Washington, U.S.A.) and in 

 the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 

 (June 18th, 1915). But the constant day- 

 by-day services of birds, the beaks that 

 are always at work, year in, year out, 

 on every patch of land, cultivated or 

 incult, in the land, and in the world, 

 seeking out fly and grub and weevil and 

 worm ; all this is too commonly passed 

 by as though it did not exist. Only 

 when at some season the bird encroaches 

 so far as to eat of grain and fruit is he 

 regarded ; and then it is with outcry 

 and malediction and the shout of " Kill, 

 kill, kill." The farmer does not turn 

 a blind eye to his men until pay-day 

 comes. He may object that the pay asked 

 is too much ; that he will reduce his 

 staff ; but he will at least have regard to 

 the labour done and the need for it. He 

 does not begrudge outlay upon chemical 

 washes and applications for insect- 

 destruction. The grain or fruit taken 

 by the bird represents the pay of the 

 labourer, the cost of the chemical. There 

 is no occasion to deny the damage, often 

 exasperating damage, done at times 

 (though probably a proportion of it might 

 be prevented by some trouble and outlay 

 on scaring) : but to ignore the unceasing 

 work, the obvious and proved importance 

 of the bird is surely folly. The tiller of 

 the land has at present power to destroy 

 the species he complains of (except where 

 local authorities decide otherwise) at 

 all times of the year. The Legislature 

 is not likely to interfere with this exten- 

 sive right ; the majority of Bird Pro- 

 tectors would not wish to do so, even 

 though the power be often and dangerously 

 misused. But it is high time that 

 ignorance and prejudice were superseded 



