38 STRA Y FEA THERS FROM MANY BIRDS. 



play a part of most vital importance in its economy. 

 We are often called upon to witness the destructive 

 habits of certain birds. Cornfields are sometimes 

 devastated, fruit orchards are frequently robbed ; and 

 the beds and fields in seed-time are dug up by pilfering 

 birds ; game is stolen from the woods and moors ; 

 poultry-yards and fish-ponds are thinned by feathered 

 marauders yet after all what does it amount to ? A 

 mere nothing, an infinitesimal fraction, when compared 

 with the boundless benefits these little creatures confer 

 on the world at large. If not for them not a leaf could 

 flutter in the breeze, nor a flower unfold its beautiful 

 petals there could be no time of harvest, for the seed- 

 time would fail, and the ripening crops be blasted by 

 the destructive insect hosts that swarm on every side. 

 The rank growth of weeds that no art of man could 

 check would choke them ; the small animals that would 

 then increase in overwhelming numbers would devour 

 them. Again, the really troublesome birds are by 

 comparison infinitely few when compared with all the 

 known species. What else but incalculable good do the 

 vast army, hundreds of millions strong, of Swallows, of 

 Warblers, and in fact of all soft-billed birds, perform, 

 engaged through every hour of daylight in searching 

 for the various enemies of vegetation or the pests 

 of man? What harm are the myriads of Owls and 

 Nightjars and other nocturnal birds engaged in as soon 



