146 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



June 



A PLEA FOR TH3 BIRDS. 



BY L. WETHERELE. 



Among the general laws, made by the last Legis- 

 lature of Massachusetts, is one " for the better pres- 

 erve tion of useful birds." 



It is deeply to be regretted, that the Legislature of 

 the State that has done so much for the establishing 

 of humane institutions, should find it necessary, at 

 this period of her history, to make a law against 

 the inhuman practice of destroying "useful birds.'' 

 Would that there might be a similar law enacted by 

 the Legislatures of all the States of this great Re- 

 public. This is a comprehensive law; for all birds 

 are "useful birds" — not excepting even the Croiv, the 

 least beloved, and the most universally persecuted of 

 land birds. It is true that the Crow, in his eager 

 search for the grub and the cut-worm, has learned to 

 pull up, or to dig up corn, in the spring; and in the 

 autumn, from his fondness of it, and as a small re- 

 muneration for his labor of destroying myriads of 

 worms, moles, mice, grubs and beetles, during the 

 summer, he picks a little of the cereal which has 

 matured by the joint labor of the crow and other 

 birds, with that of the farmer. How much better 

 policy to plant a little more, or to employ some of the 

 idle boys to guard the cornfields a few days in the 

 spring, than that these birds should be destroyed by 

 these cruel boys, for mere amusement, or for any 

 other purpose. 



What considerate father or guardian can equip his 

 boy with a musket to go abroad into the fields, or- 

 chards, hedges and woods to shoot birds! They go 

 out some of them, it is true, professedly for the pur- 

 pose of shooting what are called, "noxious birds.' 

 But they return and exhibit as the fruits of their suc- 

 cess not unfrequently a collection of robins, orioles, 

 warblers, &tc, fcc, which, as it would seem, none 

 but the most heartless barbarian could be depraved 

 and wanton enough to destroy, and yet this is styled 

 amusement. It can be amusement it would seem to 

 none but the grossly ignorant, or to such as are to- 

 tally destitute of humanity. 



The crow, the black bird tribe, the thrasher, the 

 towhe bunting, named pee-ioink, ground robin, tshe- 

 wink, and the blue-jay, are charged with making de- 

 predations upon the corn fields. It is true that some 

 of them must plead guilty to the charge. After the 

 crow, the starling, or red-winged black bird, as he is 

 better known among the farmers, has the reputation 

 of being a great corn thief. He learned the art of 

 pulling up corn in the same way that the crow did, 

 t " ''. in his diligent search of grubs. Wilson, the 

 ce^e-jrated Ornithologist, makes the computation that 

 each red winged black bird devours, on an average, 

 fifty grubs a day : so that a single pair, in four 

 months, will consume more than twelve thousand of 

 these destructive worms. Then think of the millions 

 of these birds thus employed over the New England, 

 Middle and Western States during the spring and 

 summer, and that they not only destroy an incalcula- 

 ble number of these grubs, but what is still worthy of 

 no small consideration, prevent their increase. 



The fanner, the gardener, and the fruil culturist have 

 a thousand times more to fear from the 600,000 species 

 of insects, than from two or three of the 6,000 species 

 of birds. Great numbers of these species feed al- 

 most exclusively upon insects. The cedar bird, 

 named also the cherry bird, so persecuted by the gar- 

 dener, because the poor harmless wanderer picks a 

 few cherries from the trees which his dili<rence and 



labor have ridden in part from the deadly insects 

 which would otherwise soon destroy both fruit and 

 trees, is, notwithstanding, the gardener's co-laborer 

 and friend. 



Are fruit growers generally aware that this bird is 

 the most efficient agent they have in destroying the 

 canker-worm which attacks the apple tree and the 

 elm; and also the slug, which infests fruit and orna- 

 mental trees? If they are, why then wage a war of 

 extermination against them? A pair of cherry birds 

 will destroy more insects during the seaso-i than two 

 men employed for this purpose — whose efforts, though 

 less successful, would cost the employer two dollars 

 a day — while the birds for a remuneration pick a few 

 cherries — -few, indeed, compared with the quantity 

 that would be consumed by these two men, whose 

 employment might be the same for the season as that 

 of the birds whose labor is gratuitous. 



If then, the crows, the starlings, and the cherry birds, the 

 first tribe, for whose destruction bounties or rewards have 

 not been unfrequently offered by both States and private 

 citizens, be such faithful and successful destroyers of ver- 

 min, it would seem to be a far more reasonable, and conse- 

 quently n much easier and better policy, that, a severe pen- 

 alty should be imposed on all persons who shall be found 

 guilty of destroying the crows ; and so of the other birds 

 here named as well as of the many which are generally re- 

 garded as harmless, though ftr less the coadjutors of the till- 

 ers of the soil, than these persecuted tribes. Are there not, 

 then, good and substantial reasons why there should be le- 

 gislation for the preservation of useful birds, so long as m in 

 finds pleasure and amusement in their destruction. It would 

 be about as wise n policy for manufacturers and merchants 

 to pray that it might not rain again because some one or 

 more of their number had suffered a little, or much by the 

 flood produced by the storm, as it would be, or is, for the 

 farmer to seek to destroy the birds, because they occasionally 

 pick a cherry, or destroy a little corn — for it matter would 

 little to man whether he had run or sunshine, were it not for 

 the birds which keep the insects in check, which would oth- 

 erwise so greatly multiply as to devour every green thing 

 upon the face of the whole earth. 



Before dismissing the subject, there is one other considi r- 

 ation that should be mentioned as a plea for the preservation 

 of the birds. And that is, that they do so much by their 

 presence, and by their melodious and cheerful songs to ani- 

 mate the otherwise dull and lifeless scenery of earth. The 

 voice of spring seems to be heralded forth in the notes of 

 these sweet songters who chase away old Boreas in his, at 

 limes, rather reluctant retreat toward his home, the arctic 

 region. What farmer's toil is not rendered more cheerful 

 and light by seeing and hearing the brilliantly plumaged 

 singing birds. The Thresher, sometimes called the Planting 

 bird, sits perched upon the top of some high tree near by, 

 pouring out as it would seem his very soul in a full, flowing, 

 sweet and eloquent strain, as much superior to the notes of 

 the Canary as is his position to that of being made a prison- 

 er with the latter. So of the warblers, the oriole, the robin, 

 and the wood thrush, whose sweet and silvery notes fill the 

 air. 



Let, then, the injunction, of " Live and let live," include 

 birds which constitute so charming a link in that wonderful 

 chain of animated being. Then shall this poor plea for the 

 " birds" be fully realized. 



Siek.— The quantity of silk used in England alone, 

 amounts each year to more than four millions of pounds in 

 weight!— for the production of which myriads upon myri- 

 ads of insects are required. Fourteen thousand millions of 

 animated creatures annually live and die to supply this cor- 

 ner of the world with an article of luxury. If astonishment 

 be excited at this fact, let us extend our view to ( 'bin i and 

 survey the dense population of that widely Bpread regi >n, 

 whose innabitnnts, from the Emperor on bis throne to the 

 peasant in his lonely but, are indebted for their clothin ; to 

 the labors of the Silk Worm. It is truly remarked by Scotfs 

 excellent paper, " that imagination fatigued with the flight, is 

 lost and bewildered in contemplating the countless numbers 

 which every successive year spin their slender threads for 

 the service of man." 



