38 



Birds seem to have been numerous and unmolested at that 

 time in Brussels parks, but years later, under a policy of bird 

 destruction, insects got the upper hand. 



In 1858 Kearly wrote that sparrows and other birds had 

 appeared at the park in Brussels in unusual numbers. This 

 should have warned the authorities that insect pests were be- 

 coming numerous there, but, instead, the birds were declared a 

 nuisance, their destruction was ordered, and the order was 

 carried out. The next year insects swarmed in the park. The 

 gypsy moth stripped nearly all the trees of their foliage, and 

 the last condition was worse than the first. 1 



After the French Revolution, when the game laws were 

 abolished, people, being accustomed to regard birds as the prop- 

 erty of the great landowners, began to destroy birds and game 

 without limit. This slaughter was followed from time to time 

 by an increase of pernicious insect pests, and resulted in great 

 distress through crop failure. Investigation by naturalists 

 proved that the destruction of birds was the indirect cause of 

 the failure of the crops. 2 



In 1861 the French harvests gave such an unusually poor re- 

 turn that a commission to inquire into the cause of the de- 

 ficiency was appointed at the instance of the Minister of Agri- 

 culture. The commission consulted expert naturalists, St. 

 Hilaire, Provost and others, and reported that the crop de- 

 ficiency was caused in great measure by the ravages of insects 

 which it is the function of certain birds to check. It was shown 

 that the people had been destroying such birds and collecting 

 their eggs in great numbers, and it was recommended that 

 prompt and energetic measures should be taken to stop the 

 killing of birds. 3 



Similar complaints were heard again from France witnin the 

 last decade. In 1910, according to Andre Godart's volume, 

 " Les Jardins Volieres," the scarcity of birds (due to insufficient 

 protection) was so great as to have been deemed responsible for 

 the loss of 40,000,000 francs to the grape growers of the 

 Gironde. Unchecked insect ravages had so decreased the olive 

 crop of southern France that the discouraged growers talked of 



i Kearly, George: The Entomologists' Weekly Intelligencer, 1858, Vol. 4, p. 192. 



Annual Report, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1861 (1862), Abstract, pp.65, 66. 



Report, United States Commissioner of Patents (Agriculture), 1861, pp. 322, 323. 



