THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BIRDS 



The beautiful is as useful as the useful. 



VICTOR HUGO. 



Whatever tends to make the world happier and better is of direct material 

 value, though its value may not be measurable in dollars. Every year the 

 people are turning more and more to the study of birds for pleasure. To 

 watch our feathered neighbors, with their bright coats, cheery songs and in- 

 teresting habits, has become a delight to thousands. Everywhere amateurs 

 may be seen with field-glasses, cameras and note-books in hand, peering into 

 the bushes and treetops in the hope that some new candidate for observation 

 may present itself. "Hunting with a camera," instead of with a gun, has 

 become the slogan in some quarters. Printing presses are kept busy in the 

 publication of books and magazines devoted wholly to ornithology. Ornitholo- 

 gists are flooded with requests for information upon the subject. Boys whose 

 future once looked doubtful have become interested in the protection of birds, 

 thus acquiring new ideas concerning the humane treatment of other living 

 creatures, and are hence destined to better citizenship. So, from moral and 

 aesthetic points of view, as well as for purely utilitarian reasons, general 

 public recognition of the value of birds is important. 



Michelet long ago said : 



II it were not for the birds no human being could live upon the earth, for the 

 insects upon which birds live would destroy all vegetation. 



Very much later a writer in Forest and Stream said : 



If the birds were all destroyed agriculture in the United States would instantly 

 cease. 



Still later Forbush, one of our foremost writers on this subject, said : 



An acquaintance with useful birds of the farm is as important to the farmer as 

 is a knowledge of the insect pests which attack his crops. 



Concerning the relation of birds to forests the same writer said: 



Were the natural enemies of forest insects annihilated every tree in our woods 

 would bo threatened with destruction, and man would be powerless to prevent it. 



Such startling assertions are not the vain vaporings of dreamers and 

 sentimentalists. They are the conclusions forced upon scientists by a vn^t 

 accumulation of information acquired only by the most painstaking and 

 tedious investigation. 



Possibly in some instances there has been a tendency toward assertions 

 too extravagant concerning the value of birds. It may be that if birds were 

 all destroyed, the other enemies of destructive insects might be able to take 

 care of the difficulty, but this no one can know. We do definitely know that 

 birds destroy vast hordes of insects every year, and are to be numbered 

 among the most important factors in checking the increase of insects, which, 

 if unchecked by any means, would destroy all vegetation. 



THE BALANCE OF NATURE 



As naturalists have come to study species more in their relation to and 

 association with each other, they have recognized in Nature a vast system 

 of checks and balances, each species acting as a check upon others, and thus 

 preserving what has become known as the "Balance of Nature." This delicate 

 adjustment is the outcome of ages of evolution. From almost the very 



