WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



from love of human society and for more solid and 

 prosaic reasons. 



The settlement of a country implies the felling 

 of forests, the letting in upon the ground of light 

 and warmth, the propagation of seed-bearing cere- 

 als, weeds, and grasses enormously in excess of a 

 natural state of things, the destruction of noxious 

 quadrupeds and reptiles, and the introduction of 

 horses and cattle. Each of these alterations of 

 nature (except in some few cases, like that of the 

 relation of the woodpecker to the cutting away of 

 timber) is a direct benefit to the little birds. It is 

 not difficult to demonstrate this. 



Birds naturally choose sunny spots in which to 

 build their nests, such as some little glade on the 

 bank of a stream; when roads were cut and fields 

 levelled in the midst of sombre woods, the area 

 suitable for nesting was, of course, greatly added to, 

 and a better chance thus afforded for successfully 

 hatching and rearing broods of young. The way 

 in which the wood-roads cut by the hemlock bark- 

 peelers through the dense forests that clothe the 

 remote Catskills have become the haunt of birds 

 and insects is a capital example in urging this 

 point. One of the largest avine families that 

 of the sparrows, finches, and buntings subsists 



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