BIRDS 



needed is to teach the people the value of our native 

 birds, and to provide the necessary machinery for the 

 enforcement of bird protection laws. In South Africa 

 the majority of wild birds are under the protection of 

 the law, but no efforts are made to either enforce 

 these laws or to educate the school children on the 

 subject. 



How long are we to allow these allies to be at the 

 mercy of the trap, the snare, the catapult, and the gun 

 of the ignorant ? Just so long as we permit this 

 unreasoning and callous slaughter of our birds, we shall 

 have our crops, our orchards, our pasturage, and our 

 forests riddled and damaged by the insect armies. 



Birds seek out and devour the worms in the wood, 

 the caterpillars on the crops, the aphides on the shrubs, 

 the fruit and disease-carrying flies in the air, the wire- 

 worms and other larvae underground, and pests which 

 are wounding and slaying all forms of useful plant 

 life. In Canada and the United States of America 

 strong efforts have been and are being made to reduce 

 the gigantic losses which are caused by the depreda- 

 tions of insects. It is estimated (19 15) that the birds 

 of Nebraska eat 1 70 cartloads of insects a day. This 

 was the calculation of an eminent naturalist. He also 

 estimated that the birds of Massachusetts destroyed 

 21,000 bushels of insects daily; and a single species 

 of hawk saved the farmers of the Western States 

 175,000 dollars a year by destroying grasshoppers 

 and field mice. 



When you take life away with one blow, do you 

 not sometimes think how powerless you are to make 



S3 



