106 Mr. J. Buckland on 



smoke. The smoke slowly drifts away, to disclose a bird 

 lying dead. 



Caterpillars are not gifted with a voice. If they were 

 they -would scarce forbear to cheer. 



The bird is dead. Mark the secinel. One fine morning 

 the gardener issues proudly forth to cut his mammoth 

 cabbage — the one with which he intends to put to utter 

 confusion all other competitors at the local fruit and flower 

 show. Alas for human hopes and the depredations of 

 caterpillars. The cabbage is riddled like a colander. 



The gardener, when he shot the ])ird, forgot, if, indeed, he 

 ever knew, that the ancient law forbade a muzzle to the ox 

 that threshed out the corn. 



Utility of Birds in the Meadow. 



Each season, until hay-making commences, the grass offers 

 cover and shelter for the nests of such birds as breed on the 

 ground. The fields also provide food for birds, and for the 

 insects on which birds feed. Thus there is established a 

 natural interrelation and interdependence between the bird 

 and its food and shelter — that is to say, the insects and the 

 grass. This simulates the condition of the earth before man 

 made discord in the grand harmony of Nature's laws. 



Where the birds of the field are undisturbed they tend to 

 hold the grass insects in check. On the other hand, when 

 the numbers of birds in the field are, for any reason, 

 insufficient, the insects increase. 



Hero is an instance of this. Some years ago in Bridge- 

 water Massachusetts, a great battue was held by the 

 ignorant townspeople in the spring of the year, and so 

 many field birds were killed that their dead bodies were 

 ploughed into the land for manure. The following summer 

 whole fields of grass wither(!d away and died. This was due 

 solely to the fact that the mnnber of field birds had l)een 

 reduced, and, in conseriuenec, the i)ressure which Nature 

 demands the field birds shall exert upon the field insect had 

 been released. 



