UTILITY OF BIRDS. 65 



become extremely shy and have lost all confidence in man. 

 Yet if they were harbored and protected from annoyance and 

 danger, they would be tame and confiding, and our fields and 

 gardens would be full of them. They are the most indefatiga- 

 ble hunters of insects, in pastures and tilled lands, and they 

 lead their young after them as hens do. A few pairs, with 

 their young broods would perform incalculable service on every 

 farm ; and if encouraged and protected they would soon reward 

 us with their confidence and their services. These little birds 

 are incapable of doing any mischief ; they steal no fruit ; do 

 not bite off the tops of tender herbs ; they are interesting in 

 their ways, and the only cause of their scarcity is the shameful 

 destruction of them by wanton gunners. 



The consequences v^hich have followed the destruction of birds ^ 

 as related in many well authenticated instances, afford one of the 

 most convincing proofs of their utility. Professor Jenks men- 

 tions a case communicated by one of his female correspondents, 

 which is worthy of record. In former times, as she had been 

 told by her father, an annual shooting match took place on 

 Election day in May. On one of these occasions, about the 

 year 1820, in North Bridgewater, the birds were killed in such 

 quantities, that cartloads of them were sold to the farmers for 

 fertilizing the soil. There was consequently a great scarcity 

 of birds in all that vicinity. Soon the herbage begun to show 

 signs of injury. Tufts of withered grass appeared, and spread 

 out widely into circles, of a seared and burnt complexion. 

 Though the cause and effect were so near each other, they were 

 not logically put together by the inhabitants at that time. 

 Modern entomology, however, would have explained to them 

 the cause of this phenomenon, in the increase of the larvae of 

 injurious insects, nsually kept in check by the birds which had 

 been destroyed at the shooting match. 



After the abolition of the game laws in France, at the close 

 of the last century, the people being used to regard birds as 

 the property of great land owners, instead of the free denizens 

 of nature, destroyed them without any limits. Every species of 

 game, including even the common singing-birds, was threatened 

 with extermination. It was found necessary, therefore, to 

 protect them by laws that forbade hunting at certain seasons. 

 It is only by such unfortunate experience that men can learn 



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