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England. But scientific inquiry into the mode of living of 

 certain debatable birds — debatable as to their usefulness or 

 harmfulness — will never conclusively settle the question, because 

 of the impossibility of weighing the profit against the loss, and 

 because the adaptibility of Nature defies a rigid category. 

 Certain birds are useful in some countries and some seasons, 

 and harmful in others. They change their habits and their 

 food -with their circumstances — like men. Here, again, it would 

 seem that the laws of the Audubon Societies are right in making 

 no long roll of noxious aves. 



Harm to the household of man is done by birds only when they 

 assemble in large numbers. Rudolf Blasius insists that those 

 birds that remain with us throughout the year are the most 

 important as insect destroyers, especially those that nest in 

 hollows — Tits, Nuthatch, Creeper ; and he rules the summer 

 migrants in a secondary place. But the winter birds are perforce 

 more omnivorous than the typical fine-billed migrants. The 

 fact that these migrants and the imagos of most insects appear 

 simultaneously, each ready for the reproduction of its kind, and 

 that they disappear synchronously, gives a clear hint as to the 

 uncompromising encouragement they should receive. Who shall 

 say which is the better friend to man, they, or the stay-at-homes ? 



Sometimes a little rough must be taken with the smooth. 

 Agriculturists would not banish the sun because at times the 

 crops are scorched, nor the rain because floods have brought 

 disaster. There has been, in the past, too great a readiness to 

 take hasty reprisals against birds which, though at most times 

 useful, do on occasion work harm, or, as often happens, are 

 thought to work harm. Song and beauty and counterbalancing 

 good should be taken into account in judging. 



INJURY CAUSED BY WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION ON 

 MIGRATION. 



The legislation of one country sometimes tends to a certain 

 harshness towards the migrants from other countries. It is the 

 wish to be good to oneself at someone else's expense, or to get 

 something gratis. In France, and throughout Southern Europe, 

 wherever birds pass, there the pot shooter and the netter and 

 the limer await them ; more especially in autumn, when the 

 travellers make a leisurely progress, with frequent stops by day 

 for food and rest. The spring migration is a rush for the breeding 

 haunts, and less is seen of the birds on their way. The heartless 

 slaughter done in France ; the carefully prepared gardens of 



