NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



judgment, and the result. Frederick the Great of 

 Prussia, angered because a flock of sparrows had 

 pecked and spoiled some of his cherries, issued an 

 order that every small bird on his estate be searched 

 out and killed. Within two years his beloved cherry 

 trees were bare of fruit, but heavily weighted with 

 caterpillars instead. 



The only fruit-eating birds which do not earn 

 their wages to my knowledge are the coly or mouse 

 bird (Muis vogel), the bulbuls, known as the kuifkop, 

 geelgat, topknot, black head, and tiptol. 



In some localities the red-winged starling or 

 rooivlark {Amydrus morio) ravages the orchards. 



Poisoning fruit to kill fruit-eating birds is often 

 a harmful and wasteful practice, because large numbers 

 of birds are poisoned which resort to the orchard to 

 peck at fruit already damaged by the true fruit-eating 

 birds, beetles, flies, and maggots. I have seen wood- 

 peckers and other eminently useful insectivorous birds 

 lying dead under trees, some of the fruit of which 

 had been poisoned. 



The following experience of the owner of a large 

 cherry orchard in Kent, England, is interesting 

 reading : — 



' Two men were constantly employed in the early 

 summer to shoot bullfinches, chaffinches, wood- 

 pigeons, and indeed every bird that dared to chirp. 

 An ominous stillness pervaded the orchard and, 

 notwithstanding the money wasted in labour, powder, 

 and shot, the crops were far below the average, owing to 

 the depredations of thousands of caterpillars that fed 



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