160 INDIAN CORN. 



none that render a more important service than birds. 

 The following striking illustration of this is given in 

 Anderson? s Recreations : "A cautions observer, hav- 

 ing found a nest of five young jays, remarked that 

 each of. these birds, while yet very young, consumed 

 fifteen full-sized grubs in one day, and of course would 

 require many more of a smaller size. Say that, on an 

 average of sizes, they consumed twenty a piece. These 

 for the five make one hundred. Each of the parents 

 consume 3 say, fifty, so that the pair and family devour 

 two hundred every day. This, in three months, 

 amounts to twenty thousand in one season. But, as 

 the grub continues in that state four seasons, this sin- 

 gle pair, with their family alone, without reckoning 

 their descendants after the first year, would destroy 

 eighty thousand grubs. Let us suppose that the half, 

 namely, forty thousand, are females, and it is known 

 that they usually lay about two hundred eggs each ; it 

 will appear that no less than eight millions have been 

 destroyed, or prevented from being hatched, by the 

 labors of a single family of jays. It is by reasoning 

 in this way that we learn to know of wHat importance 

 it is to attend to the economy of nature, and to be 

 cautious how we derange it by our short-sighted and 

 futile operations." 



How plainly, then, is it the interest of the farmer 

 to attract to his fields, to encourage and protect the 

 feathered tribes, of every name and kind, and to wage 

 uncompromising war against all who persecute them ; 

 for, incredible as it may seem, there are those who 

 find a mysterious, if not malignant pleasure in slaying 



