AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 169 



SHELTER FOR THE BIRDS. 



With every recurring year come back the countless hordes of insects to 

 prey upon our crops, and the repetition of more or less futile attempts to 

 check or exterminate.. But there is little use in trying to sweep the sea 

 back with a broom, or to stay an avalanche with a straw. We must find 

 an antagonistic cause, or make one, that when the time of development 

 comes, it may do away with or neutralize the effect we fear. 



But it is not in the power of man, with all his science, unassisted by the 

 birds, to prevent the multiplication of insects from being the cause of his 

 crops' annihilation. He may destroy trees and shrubbery about his bord- 

 ers which are supposed to harbor insects, clip his hedges, and grub out all 

 the bits of wild growth in the neighborhood, and all the time be working 

 to his own undoing. Money spent for insecticides is but a straw in front 

 of the invading horde, and all the inventions and appliances and makeshifts 

 never destroy one ten-thousandths of the host that encompasses and dis- 

 mays him. 



How much better it would be to accept the co-operation of the opposing 

 army, which is both eager and able to do what we cannot, and which, 

 moreover, is only waiting for our permission. Why not leave them a bit 

 of woodland or wild shrubbery for nesting, in return for the protection of 

 our crops? 



All species of insects multiply in cultivated grounds, while the birds, 

 with a few exceptions, that feed upon them, can find a nursery and protec- 

 tion only in the woods. Insects deposit their eggs in the soil, on the 

 branches of trees, about fences and buildings, and are nowise dependent 

 on a wild growth of wood and shrubbery. They need nothing better than 

 the under edge of a clapboard or a shingle whereon to suspend their co- 

 coons or lay their eggs, and so minute are the objects that will afford them 

 all the conveniences they need, when hatching and when passing through 

 all their transformations, till they become perfect insects, that no artifice 

 or industry of man can deprive them of their nurseries, or appreciably les- 

 sen their numbers. 



It is a significant fact that birds increase with the advance of civilization. 

 The forest yields them but a scanty subsistence, and though its border is 

 their nursery and shelter, their best feeding places are the cultivated 

 grounds. There is not a single species whose means of subsistence are 

 not increased by the clearing of the forest and the cultivation of the land, 

 but they require a certain proportion of wild wood for their habitation. 

 This is partly because of their naturally wild nature, and partly because 

 we never attempt to win their confidence. While our grounds offer them 

 a tempting feeding place, yet our very presence is always felt by them to 

 be a menance. Very few species build their nests in the trees. and shrub- 



