102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



known to be beneficial since tliey subsist entirely upon insects, 

 we come to the great family of thrushes. It is of these that I 

 wish to speak particularly here, since no birds have caused 

 more discussion than these, and none have been more belied 

 than the robin, who is a familiar representative of this important 

 group. 



These birds are very unpopular with horticulfurists, and 

 hardly an agricultural paper can be found but that an article 

 appears in its columns against them. I will present a few of 

 these *attacks, and answer them with the observations of emi- 

 nent scientific men and practical farmers, together with my own 

 knowledge in the premises. 



A writer in the " New England Farmer," vol. x., page 542, 

 says : " Self-defence is the first law of nature, and wild animals 

 and birds, which are a positive injury to man, it is his right and 

 duty to destroy, ' legislative enactment notwithstanding.' The 

 law forbids manslaughter, yet self-defence permits it. Man's 

 title deeds allow him the ownership of all the animals and birds 

 that infest his premises, yet the law declares, that he shall suffer 

 its penalties if he destroys one of them. If it was the intention of 

 the law to put an end to the wanton destruction of all birds, 

 then the law was a just one, but if it was intended that a land- 

 holder should harbor a band of robbers, then it is an unjust one. 



" Let us enumerate some of the injuries that we are every year 

 receiving, and some of them are entailed even to the third or 

 fourth generation of man. The destructive propensities of the 

 robin are such, that, after doing all the damage he possibly can 

 in the garden, by partaking, not alone of what he may need, but 

 by pecking at all the fair and sound fruit, commencing with the 

 strawberry, raspberry, cherry and peach ; none, even of the new- 

 and choice varieties of the blackberry, can be gleaned in his 

 neighborhood, as they ripen so slowly, that his dividend is both 

 principal and interest. After doing all this mischief in the 

 garden, be betakes himself to the rich pasture land, and there 

 riots in untold injuries to us. He is the enemy that sows tares 

 when we are in the land of dreams, and our legislative bodies 

 are hedging him around with the impregnable barriers of the 

 law. An enumeration of his labors in pasture land will not be 

 inappropriate here. First, he distributes the seed of low blue- 

 berry, wild blackberry, barberry, savins, garget, &c. Red 



