MISCELLANEOUS BIRDS 45 



birds are more or less insect-eaters, and as such ought to 

 be rigidly protected as being helpers of the farmer in 

 keeping down the various scourges which attack his 

 grain and fruit. Many birds, which themselves do a 

 great deal of damage in this way, more than make up 

 for it by eating vast numbers of insects which would 

 prove far more destructive than the birds, were the 

 latter not present to keep them in check. Birds possess 

 voracious appetites, and get through a truly astonishing 

 amount of food for their size. It does not take a small 

 bird long to consume more than his own weight in insects. 

 In fact if we had no feathered friends, it is difficult to 

 know how we should keep our insect enemies, with their 

 swarming grubs, in check at all. 



The trade in the feathers of those birds, which, un- 

 luckily for themselves, have brilliant plumage, has already 

 done a vast amount of harm all over the world. Man 

 has suffered a good deal for his own folly, and would 

 suffer still more but that he has at last awakened to the 

 danger ; and so the plumage trade is now everywhere 

 being regulated, and in some countries even abolished. 

 It also happens that many of the birds which wear the 

 most attractive plumage are among the worst enemies 

 of the insects. 



Dr. Hornaday, the well-known director of the New 

 York Zoological Park, has probably done more than any 

 other man to show up the iniquity of the total destruction 

 of wild life, particularly of bird life, and during the past 

 few years his efforts have been crowned with conspicuous 

 success, especially in the United States. His book, 

 " Our Vanishing Wild Life," should be read by everyone 

 who desires to gain some idea of the dangers which 

 threaten to exterminate wild life nearly all over the world 

 at the present time. 



