NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



ground. The conclusion invariably arrived at is that the 

 bird is digging up the germinating seed, and sentence 

 of death is hastily passed on it. Perchance, after 

 much exhausting toil, a bird fails to satisfy its hunger 

 on cut-worms and caterpillars, and is seen to take a 

 few peas or some grain. This evidence, to the 

 average human observer, is sufficient justification for 

 destroying the bird and all its species, although for 

 every seed it eats a thousand are indirectly saved 

 by it. For instance, we will take a large field of 

 wheat as an illustration. From the time the seeds 

 germinate until the crop is ripe for reaping, cut- 

 worms, other grubs, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and 

 beetles are steadily devouring it. A caterpillar will 

 eat at least fifty young wheat plants in the course 

 of a single day or night. One small bird will 

 destroy ioo caterpillars a day when they are young, 

 and ten times that number if it has a nest full 

 of babies. So, if a bird destroys ioo caterpillars 

 in a day, and if a caterpillar eats fifty wheat plants, 

 then the bird is saving 5,000 wheat plants every 

 day, or 150,000 in a month, from destruction. 

 Should the bird be feeding five nestlings at the same 

 time, a minimum of half a million wheat plants would 

 be saved in a month. Not only this, but if those 

 caterpillars had come to maturity they would have 

 changed into butterflies or moths, and the next genera- 

 tion of caterpillars would have multiplied at least a 

 thousandfold. This, then, represents a portion of a 

 breeding bird's labours for the farmer. When the 

 wheat is ripe, and if it be one of the grain-eating 



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