190 What Birds Have Done With Me 



damage he does is insignificant compared to his 

 destruction of the June Beetle, the parent of the 

 frightfully destructive White Grub. The Crow 

 may take a few hills, but the Grub will take the 

 entire field. There is something almost ridicu- 

 lous in the devices advocated to trap the June 

 Beetle ; flickering lights and tubs filled with water 

 and kerosene, the light to attract, the mixture to 

 drown, and the great Agricultural Schools advo- 

 cating the "Light Water Trap, n does not seem 

 to have thought of giving the Crow, the Beetle's 

 natural enemy, a chance. Later on we may be 

 told to go after the June Bug with machine guns, 

 bombing air-planes and gas shells, and at the same 

 time continue the bounty on Crows. Piffle, 

 wretched piffle. 



Serious consequences follow tampering with 

 Nature's balance. Men, to preserve the teem- 

 ing finny tribes that abounded in the four great 

 rivers that empty their waters into Mississippi 

 Sound at Biloxi, went ahead and killed the Alli- 

 gators that also abounded, and the result was 

 the vast multiplication of the Alligator Gar-fish, 

 upon which the Alligator fed in such numbers that 

 it speedily destroyed most of the game fish. 



Hawks, Owls, Jays and Crows have been 

 slaughtered, things useful and beneficial in the 

 scheme of Nature to the great detriment of grow- 

 ing crops for the removal of their natural enemies 



