DESULTORY REMARKS. 11 



like species, in great numbers early in the spring, and also during the 

 time of nidification upon our apple trees, when the canker worm was 

 about half grown, destroying them in great numbers. It is also known 

 to every observer of nature how extremely fond our common and famil- 

 iar robin is of grubs, those insidious enemies to our garden crops, as 

 well as the slimy slug which often infest our young pear trees j and any 

 individual who may have had the robin as a cage bird, is aware of 

 the quantities of insects, or worms, he will devour in a day ; and when 

 we take into view the circumstance of these birds having usually two 

 broods in a season of four each, it will give us at least some idea of the 

 quantity of this peculiar food required for at least four months in each 

 year. And although called plunderers, they are in fact benefactors like- 

 wise, seeming to be appointed by nature as agents for keeping under the 

 increase of these races: Nearly all our hard-billed or granivorous 

 birds, are in spring and the early part of our summer decidedly insec- 

 tivorous. " Public economy and utility," says one, " no less than hu- 

 manity, plead for the protection of the feathered race ; and the wanton 

 destruction of birds, so useful, beautiful, and amusing, if not treated as 

 such by law, ought to be considered as a crime by every moral, feeling, 

 and reflecting mind." 



