78 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and that examinations of its crop, at different seasons of the year, wonkl 

 show that a h)ng catalogne onl}- could enumerate the articles on which 

 it feeds. 



Having long laid aside the gun and ornithological studies, for which I 

 once used it, I have myself no opijortunity to test the value of the robin, 

 or American red breasted thrush, in a horticultural point of view. The 

 little fruit in the way of that bird which grows on my premises, I have 

 fully shared with the feathered tribes, caring more for them than for my 

 stores of fruit. But to those who depend on early and fine fruit for sale 

 and sujiport, it were no more than reasonable that a balance were struck 

 between the injury and the benefit; between the loss of crops and the 

 extirpation of their foes, the insects. 



Nothing Init patient and constant annual and daily observation can 

 bring to us any certain and sure residts; and it may require that some 

 two hundred or three hundred birds fall in the cause of scientific inquiry, 

 as to the contents of their gizzards and stomachs, before the comparison 

 could be made. 



Nature in her economy makes no discrimination and form's no excep- 

 tions. An expert entomologist only would be competent to decide among 

 the exuviae of skins and wings and elytra, to what class of insects each 

 belonged. The bird which fed on insects to-day and on berries to-mor- 

 row, if fitted by the power of wing or shape of mandibles, would snap 

 as eagerly at a harmless or even useful insect as at a destructive one. 

 It is by no means to be taken for granted that all insects are injurious, 

 and for what amount of the destructive class are we to permit the con- 

 trol over our fruits, often to our serious loss? 



As one of your Committee to whom this subject has been referred, 

 the Chairman, while feeling authorized to speak only to a very limited 

 degree for other members, is placed, by being no more than an amateur 

 cultivator, in a position not quite advantageous to do the subject full and 

 impartial justice. The protection of birds, and their utility or injury, ap- 

 peals rather to his feelings and early education, touches the sentiment 

 rather than the pocket. The increasing varieties of fruit from year to 

 year, instead of glutting the market, only seems to swell the facilities of 

 disposing of it in mercantile ways. The President, (J. F. C. Hyde, 

 Esq.,) has shown this in the culture of the pear, and declared it was so 

 in 8trawl)erries, the price advancing every year. New species of insects 

 appear on our farms and in our gardens, transported by eggs or other 

 means, on foreign trees, scions, seeds, &c. It is evident that the more 

 there is raised for insects to destroy, so the more insects will be on hand 

 to destroy it. It is a constant question then whether we can spare any 

 means to diminish their numbers and the injury they effect. And if it 

 be allowed and should be found that the American robin is our friend at 

 periods of the season when insects must be its food, though a foe when 



