10-1 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



bird-notes are scarce, their shrill, liquid, half harsh and half sad 

 ones, are not unwelcome. When it comes to insolence and 

 swagger, the robin takes the rag. Add to insolence and swag- 

 ger a gluttony as never ending and insatiable as it is destructive, 

 and you have the character of the meanest thief and hog that 

 goes on wing. They have no decency, no honor, and when 

 driven from their work, or kept from it, we defy all bird kind to 

 put on insolence more noisy and aggravating. They commenced 

 on the cherry tree as soon as colored. We took a suit of our 

 oivn clothes, put in a face to match, and hung it pendant in a 

 tree. The next morning there were several thousand of the 

 scoundrels in the tree, and one on the hat. The truth is, 

 nothing but shot will protect choice fruits from the robin. 

 There is no stop to their eating. As soon as the berries are 

 gone, presto, they all leave. There has been no sight or sound 

 of one for weeks. Call you this compensation for large amounts 

 of choice fruits destroyed ? We do not kill birds, have no gun, 

 but had we a musket at hand when choice cherries are coming 

 into bearing, we should have no scruples about sending a 

 few robins to pot, or kingdom come. We had rather have a 

 hundred blue jays about than ten robins. The one is not more 

 overbearing and quarrelsome than the other." 



Now it is just this kind of letters, published in different 

 papers, that keep up the prejudice among the farfners, who 

 have, perhaps, no time to look far into the subject, but, taking the 

 leading features in these letters, together with their own experi- 

 ence, as the ivhole truth, sacrifice the robins and other beneficial 

 birds without mercy. They accuse him of living upon fruit and 

 earthworms alone, alleging that he destroys but very few of the 

 insects injurious to vegetation. Nothing can be farther from the 

 truth, for he is, in fact, one of the most valuable of our birds, 

 exceeded only, perhaps, by the small woodpeckers and the chick- 

 adee and warblers in the service he performs by checking the 

 multiplication of noxious insects. 



As an instance of the insect-eating propensities of the robin, 

 I will give, among others, the experience of Mr. Trouvelot, of 

 Medford. This gentleman is engaged in rearing silkworms for 

 the production of silk. He has a tract of about seven or eight 

 acres inclosed and mostly covered with netting. He is obliged, 

 in self-defence, to kill the birds which penetrate into the inclosure 



