214 THE CAUSE OF THE BIRDS 



Daranyi, and published by the department over which 

 he presides. Literature of this kind is not usually 

 found in blue-books, and the Hungarian Parliament, 

 it may be thought, has tougher work before it than 

 dissertations on titmice and flycatchers; but M. de 

 Daranyi knows his business as Minister for Agriculture 

 in a country which, unlike our own, regards agriculture 

 as the premier industry, and he shows good case for 

 modifying the well-worn adage De minimis non curat 

 lex. ' Mony pickles maks a mickle,' runs the old Scots 

 saw. Insect-eating birds may be individually diminu- 

 tive, but compose in the aggregate a beneficent host 

 which, as it passes to and fro over Europe in the 

 seasonal migration, ought to be greeted with gratitude 

 and protected on its journey, instead of being 

 slaughtered in millions for the market as diligently as 

 if it consisted of destructive vermin. 



M. de Daranyi's object in this interesting and re- 

 markable publication is (1) to give a synopsis of the 

 steps which have led to the signing of an international 

 convention whereby eleven European States to wit, 

 Austria and Hungary, the German Empire, Belgium, 

 France, Spain, Greece, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, 

 Sweden and Norway, and Switzerland have bound 

 themselves under sixteen articles for the protection of 

 birds useful to agriculture ; (2) to call attention to the 

 infinite service rendered to agriculture by numerous 

 species of birds ; and (3) to show how fruitless would 

 be independent action taken by individual States in 

 dealing with a class of creatures so mobile and regu- 

 larly migratory as birds. 



