FACTS THAT PEOYE THE UTILITY OF BIKDS. 



THE consequences which have followed the destruction 

 of birds in many well-authenticated instances are suffi- 

 cient to demonstrate their utility. Professor Jenks men- 

 tions a case communicated by one of his female correspond- 

 ents. In former times, as she had been told by her father, 

 an annual shooting-match was customary on election day 

 in May. On one of these occasions, about the year 1820, 

 in North Bridge water, Mass., the birds were killed in such 

 quantities that cart-loads of them were sent to farmers for 

 compost. Then followed a great scarcity of birds in all 

 that vicinity. The herbs soon showed 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 would have explained to them the 

 cause of the phenomena, by the increase of the larva of 

 insects which were previously kept in check by the birds 

 destroyed at the shooting-match. 



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

 close of the last century, the people, having been accus- 

 tomed to regard birds as the property of great land-owners, 

 destroyed them without limit. Every species of game, 

 including even the small singing-birds, was in danger of 

 extermination. It was found necessary to protect them 

 by laws that forbade hunting at certain seasons. The 

 most serious evils were the consequence. The farmers* 

 crops were destroyed by insects, and the orchards pro- 



