CHAPTER XXI 



NATURE'S MILITIA 



"If nature's militia, the army of birds, be killed, it will 

 be impossible to find a substitute for their faithful guar- 

 dianship." 



"Birds are nature's soldiers, and keep in subjection 

 the inferior animals. Their other uses are scarcely worthy 

 of notice compared with their labors in the destruction of 

 insects." 



Wise words, which cannot be too often insisted on; 

 for though we are beginning to wake up to the immense 

 value of the feathered tribes as guardians of our fields, we 

 are still only beginning; and unfortunately, farmers and 

 gardeners, the very persons most interested, are precisely 

 those whom it is most difficult to arouse. 



They know well enough, of course, that insects, gen- 

 erally speaking, are their enemies; but they do not yet 

 recognize, as they ought, that the birds are their friends, 

 who, if only let alone, would save the crops from these 

 marauders. 



A plague of grubs finds us, in fact, just as helpless as 

 our forefathers in the Middle Ages, and almost more hope- 

 less, for we no longer believe in trying to "banish" our 

 enemies, and we have not yet discovered any more effec- 

 tual means of dealing with them. When the infliction 

 comes, we talk mysteriously of "blight" and "weather"; 

 and it seldom occurs to us to connect the increase of grubs 



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