THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF BIRDS. 37 



largely with these birds, whose capabilities as message 

 carriers in a campaign cannot be ignored. In both 

 countries large sums are being spent yearly in training 

 these birds and in organising their stations. The next 

 Franco-German war will have its corps of Homing 

 Pigeons, as useful accessories both on the field of battle 

 and in town and fortress. In Italy, Carrier Pigeons 

 regularly convey messages between the war office and 

 Rome, and to the military ports in the islands of Sicily 

 and Sardinia. Pigeons are sometimes trained by jugglers 

 to perform certain tricks. 



We cease now to look upon birds in a strictly com- 

 mercial sense, and study them from an economic point 

 of view. There can be no doubt whatever that the 

 commercial value of birds, great as it is, sinks into utter 

 insignificance when compared with their economic value. 

 We do not consider it by any means a rash statement to 

 make when we assert that the world would practically 

 be devoid of vegetable life if it were not for the army of 

 birds that people its surface. The value of birds, not 

 only in farm and garden, but in the forests and plains of 

 the uncivilised world is beyond all efforts of conception. 

 By keeping in check the endless hordes of injurious 

 insects ; by eating up the millions of seeds of noxious 

 weeds and plants ; by destroying poisonous reptiles and 

 troublesome animals, such as rats and mice the birds 

 of the world are of incalculable service to mankind, and 



