50 INTRODUCTION. 



its growth by a portion of the incessores : our 

 grains may be stripped off when just ripe, or torn 

 up when newly springing from the ground ; the 

 shoots of our young trees and the buds of the 

 orchard may be bruised, and our choicest fruits 

 may be plundered, or rendered useless. These 

 injuries, however, may be generally prevented by 

 some attention at the proper seasons, when the 

 species are so numerous as to become annoying ; 

 and in a country where cultivation is not exten- 

 sively practised, the inducement to flock towards 

 large and artificial stores of favourite food does 

 not exist, and the proportion of the produce to 

 that of the consumers is naturally kept up. But 

 even in those districts where inattention on the part 

 of the proprietor would soon permit considerable 

 loss, we have abundant compensation in the num- 

 bers of insects and their larvae, which are consumed 

 during the season of incubation by the very birds 

 which are at other times most hurtful to his crops. 

 There is not a vegetable production which we 

 cultivate, from the strongest forest tree to the 

 most tender garden flower, that is not liable to 

 the attacks of multitudes of insects, and though 

 tiny in their form and weapons, and insidious in 

 their mode of attack, the consequences are not 

 less severe and fatal. The depredations which 

 they have been known to commit, are many thou- 

 sand times greater and more extended than the 

 worst attacks of the feathered creation, and we 

 cannot look upon this large group of birds, all of 

 *hem wholly or partially insectivorous, 



