114 INTEODUCTION OF BIRDS. 



that derived from dissection. Direct observation has shown, in 

 many instances, that the destruction of wild birds has been fol- 

 lowed by a great multiplication 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 pro- 

 fessed naturahsts, but I shall content myseK with a few taken from 

 famihar and generally accessible sources. The following extract 

 is from Michelet, LWiseau, pp. 169, 170 : 



" The stingy farmer — an epithet justly and feehngly bestowed 

 by Yirgil. Avaricious, bhnd, indeed, who proscribes the birds — 

 those destroyers of insects, those defenders of his harvests. Not 

 a grain for the creature which, during the rains of winter, hunts 

 the future insect, finds out the nests of the larvae, examines, turns 

 over every leaf, and destroys, every day, thousands of incipient 

 caterpillars. But 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 f m-row, upon the present moment only, 

 without seeing and without foreseeing, blind to the great har- 

 mony which is never broken with impunity, he has everywhere 

 demanded or approved laws for the extermination of that neces- 

 sary ally of his toil — ^the insectivorous bird. And the insect has 

 well avenged the bird.* It has become necessary to revoke in 

 haste the proscription. In the Isle of Bourbon, for instance, a 

 price was set on the head of the martin ; it disappeared, and the 



great muscular exertion always increases the demand for nourisliment, either 

 in the lower animals or in man. The members of the English Alpine Club 

 are not distinguished for appetites which would make them unwelcome guests 

 to Swiss landlords, and I think every man who has had the personal charge 

 of field or railway hands, must have observed that laborers who spare their 

 strength the least are not the most valiant trencher champions. During the 

 period when imprisonment for debt was permitted in New England, persons 

 confined in county jails had no specific allowance, and they were commonly 

 fed without stint. I have often inquired concerning their diet, and been as- 

 sured 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 outdoor laborers. 



* The estimated annual destruction of property in the United States by in- 

 sects amounts to not less than 400,000,000 dollars, and no inconsiderable pro- 

 portion of this loss might doubtless be prevented by a judicious protection of 

 insectivorous birds. 



