116 INTRODUCTION OF BIRDS. 
have much other evidence besides that derived from dissection. 
Direct observation has shown, in many instances, that the 
destruction of wild birds has been followed by a great multi- 
plication of noxious insects, and, on the other hand, that these 
latter have been much reduced in numbers by the protection 
and increase of the birds that devour them. Many interesting 
facts of this nature have been collected by professed natural- 
ists, but I shall content myself with a few taken from familiar 
and generally accessible sources. The following extract is 
from Michelet, LZ’ Otseau, pp. 169, 170: 
“The stingy farmer—an epithet justly and feelingly be- 
stowed by Virgil. Avaricious, blind, indeed, who proscribes 
the birds—those destroyers of insects, those defenders of his 
harvests. Nota grain for the creature which, during the rains 
of winter, hunts the future insect, finds out the nests of the 
larvee, examines, turns over every leaf, and destroys, every 
day, thousands of incipient caterpillars. Dut sacks of corn for 
the mature insect, whole fields for the grasshoppers, which the 
bird would have made war upon. With eyes fixed upon his 
furrow, upon the present moment only, without seeing and 
without foreseeing, blind to the great harmony which is never 
broken with impunity, he has everywhere demanded or ap- 
proved laws for the extermination of that necessary ally of his 
toil—the insectivorous bird. And the insect has well avenged 
the bird. It has become necessary to revoke in haste the pro- 
scription. In the Isle of Bourbon, for instance, a price was set 
on the head of the martin; it disappeared, and the grasshop- 
pers took possession of the island, devouring, withering, scorch- 
ing with a biting drought all. that they did not consume. In 
North America it has been the same with the starling, the 
protector of Indian corn.* Even the sparrow, which really 
monly fed without stint. Ihave often inquired concerning their diet, and 
been assured by the jailers that their prisoners, who were not provided with 
work or other means of exercise, consumed a considerably larger supply of 
food than common out-door laborers. 
*T hope Michelet has good authority for this statement, but I am unable to 
confirm it. 
