CIVILIZING INFLUENCES. 185 



rect benefit to the little birds. It is not difficult to demon- 

 strate this. 



Birds naturally choose sunny spots in which to build 

 their nests, such as some little glade on the bank of a 

 stream ; when roads were cut and fields levelled in the 

 midst of sombre woods, the area suitable for nesting was 

 of course greatly added to, and a better chance thus afford- 

 ed for successfully hatching and rearing broods of young. 

 The way in which the wood-roads cut by the hemlock bark- 

 peelers through the dense forests that clothe the remote 

 Catskills have become the haunt of birds and insects, is a 

 capital example in urging this point. One of the largest 

 avian families that of the sparrows, finches, and buntings 

 subsists almost exclusively on seeds of weeds and grasses; 

 and the members of a large proportion of other families de- 

 pend somewhat for their daily supply on this sort of food. 

 Under the universal shade of trees weeds can grow only 

 sparingly, and on prairies the crop is often killed by 

 drought, or is burnt in the autumn ; but the cultivation 

 of immense fields of grain and hay, and the making of 

 broad pastures and half -worn roads, which almost imme- 

 diately become filled with weeds, has furnished the birds 

 with an inexhaustible and unfailing harvest. 



Birds suffer much harm from many quadrupeds foxes, 



