1 74 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



measure are begun to be felt. In this matter the legislator should 

 take a lesson from the naturalist." 



Linnaeus gives two remarkable examples to coiifirm it. One, in 

 the case of the little crow of Virginia {Gracula Qiiisciila), extir- 

 pated at great expense on account of its supposed destructive 

 effects, and which the inhabitants would soon gladly have reintro- 

 duced at double the expense. The other the Egyptian Vulture 

 [Viilfiir Percnopterus). This species of crow constantly frequented 

 the pea fields, and to put a stop to its ravages its extirpation was 

 resolved upon. As soon as this was effected, an insect of the 

 beetle kind multiplied to such a degree that very few peas were 

 left. A naturalist found that the crows were not in quest of peas, 

 but only devouring the beetles. 



As for the vulture, Linnaeus says that these creatures of prey 

 rid the earth of dead carcasses and make it wholesome and com- 

 fortable, besides serving to maintain a due proportion between the 

 different animals, and to prevent any one kind from starving the 

 rest. 



In addition to this detail, I subjoin what follows in the same 

 magazine, relative to the crow in Sweden: " At somewhat less ex 

 pense the same truth was some time ago confirmed in Sweden. 

 The common crow {^Corviis comix, Linn.) was thought to be too 

 fond of the young root of grass, being observed sometimes to pick 

 them out and lay them bare. Orders were therefore given to the 

 people to be at all pains to extirpate them, till some person, more 

 judicious, opposed this, and showed that it was not the roots of the 

 grass, but the destructive caterpillars of certain insects which fed 

 on them, that the crows searched for and devoured." [Michaelis'' 

 Laws of Moses, Vol. 2, p. 421 et seq. ] 



There is a great slaughter of birds carried on by the young 

 boys. Near where I live, in the heart of the city, lives a boy who 

 carries a stone slinger, and that boy in one day killed ten sparrows, 

 eight of which fell to the ground alive, to use the phrase of one of 

 his young companions —which meant wounded. Last evening, a 

 lady, just from the suburbs of St. Louis, stated that, next door to 

 where she was there staying, a small boy, ten years of age, had a 

 gun, and got up early every morning and shot at everything of the 

 bird kind he could see. 



Probably some of you read the article in one of our daily pa- 

 pers lately in which the writer stated that when walking in the 

 forests in the vicinity of this city, he saw a boy, accompanied by a 



