172 SHELTER TO INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



hundreds of millions of francs every year. It is ead, indeed, that mankind cannot see 

 tbip, and take measures for preserving the harvests, which at best cost him dearly, and 

 for which he bestows so much care. From 100 to 200 millions' worth of crops might 

 doubtless be thus saved every year, which would prove a very important item in the 

 ■way of provision supply. — {Journal Officiel.) " 



A society for the protection of animals, in view of public utility, has, 

 for some years, given honorary or pecuniary rewards to such children 

 as have distinguished themselves by putting these principles in prac- 

 tice, and to teachers who have done most to promote these ends. Sev- 

 eral agricultural and horticultural societies have taken active measures 

 in disseminating facts tending to impress upon the public a realization 

 of its importance, and the subject has received the attention of govern- 

 ments. 



The disappearance of this class of birds, and a corresponding increase 

 of insects, is not wholly due to the destruction of the former. They 

 simply desert the regions where they no longer find nesting-places to 

 seek other regions where they can. Some of them, like the woodpeckers, 

 subsist upon the larvoe of insects found in decaying wood, and are starved 

 out. Others love the shelter of woodlands near as a hiding place 

 from birds of prey, and do not forage far beyond their borders. 



A spirited writer, in a pajyer read before the French Society of 

 Acclimatation,^ after enumerating the great services rendered to farm- 

 ers by these allies of the field, says : 



We have pointed out a natural Ctause for the diminution of birds in the widely-ex- 

 tending area of cultivation, and the destruction of woods, but the agency of this 

 calamity, which threatens our agricultural interests with the greatest damage from the 

 absence of birds is unliceneed hunting and the massacre to which they are giveu 

 up by hunters, with all kinds of murderous devices, and the pillage of their nests and 

 destrnction of their young by children and by animals of prey. 



Prohibitions against poaching ought to include not only the destruction at all sea- 

 sons, by unlawful means, of game, properly so calk d, such as partridges, quails, pheasants, 

 hares, rabbits, and deer, but should also stay the butchers of birds of passage, or those 

 that remain with ns, by any forbidden contrivances, or by ))o;soning. Let us see how 

 it is in the different ccui. tries of Europe, along the borders of the Mediterranean, on the 

 usual route of migratory birds. In France alone, from the department of the Maritime 

 Alps to the Pyreuees-Orientales, all the heights along the coast are covered with tlio 

 nets and devices of the hunters — traps, fall-nets, bird-lime-twigs, and snares, all ready 

 to hold and kill the poor travelers the moment they have finished their perilous flighc 

 across the sea. In some of the defiles of the Pyrenees-Orientalei, the catching with nets 

 gives to each hunter, in half a day, from 200 to 300 birds, and this catch continues 

 through the months of April and May. These quantities must be multiplied by that 

 of the number of hunters, which is not less than fifty in this department alone, so that 

 on " good days" they kill 10,000 of these little birds.' 



In the Var, the Bouches-du-Rhonc, the Maritime Alps, and G6nois, great hunting 

 places with bird-lime are established upon olive plantations, which they hire for this 

 use of the owner at from 40 to 50 francs the season. They cover the trees with their 

 treacherous perches, and take daily, during days of passage, from three to four hun- 

 dred birds. M. Pellicot, of Toulon, cites the case of a single hir.ng by the son of a 

 leather-merchant, who, as a simple amateur, tf>ok, in the 6ea«on of 1858, 1,800 birds. 

 Ih lb59 the number fell to 800, and inflSGO to 600. Alarmed at this immense decrease, 

 the sportsman abandoned his bird-lime. He had hunted only on Sundays and holidays, 

 and from this instance what must be the sum total of destruction by those who make 

 this piracy a daily business, and live only upon this abominable industry ! We may 

 add that in our single de[>artnient, along a coast twenty kilometers (12.4 miles) in ex- 

 tent, east of Toulon, there are more than a hundred hunters with bird-lime, and they 

 are not wanting to the west. 



In Languedoc they capture quails by tens of thousands, as they come to the shore 

 weary with their flight in April and May in quest of the regions where they breed. At 

 a moderate estimate there are at least 20,000 quails destroyed in these mouths in the 

 department of Hesault alone. 



In an instructive little work entitled "Don't kill your friends," M.H. Lasserre relates 

 that he has seen the inhabitants at Nice ranged in two files along the banks of the 

 Paillon with poles to beat down the poor swallows that, hungry and weary from the 



'Dr. L. Turrel, in the BuUcUh de la Soc. d'AccUm., 2d ser. ii, 497. 



