PROTECTION OF ANIMALS FOR UTILITY 227 

 PROTECTION OF THE FARMER'S FRIENDS 



Since everyone knows that many of our wild birds in 

 working out their own life-stories, perform deeds without 

 which the fruitful tilling of the soil could not long survive, 

 it seems strange that so little care should have been given 

 to the welfare of these friends of man. What has man done 

 to encourage the useful bird ? 



"The stingy farmer," wrote Michelet, "has not a grain for the creature, 

 which, during the rains of winter, hunts the future insect, finds out the 

 nests of the larvae, examines, turns over every leaf, and destroys every day, 

 thousands of incipient caterpillars. But sacks of corn for the mature insect, 

 whole fields for the grasshoppers, which the birds would have made war 

 upon. With eyes fixed upon his furrow, upon the present moment only, 

 without seeing and without foreseeing, blind to the great harmony which 

 is never broken with impunity, he has everywhere demanded or approved 

 laws for the extermination of that necessary ally of his toil the insecti- 

 vorous bird." 



And Michelet's condemnation could be applied with force to 

 Britain, for when he wroteL'Oiseau in 1856, the law had made 

 no effort to preserve any such bird for the welfare of the 

 country at large. Legislation for the protection of game, 

 there was in plenty, but the democratic idea of preserving 

 birds for their services to the people had not yet been born. 



Since Michelet wrote, some progress has been made in 

 other countries as in our own. Many of the United States 

 of America, like West Virginia, specify in their protection 

 laws, birds "that promote agriculture and horticulture by 

 feeding on noxious insects and worms"; and in 1902 there 

 was signed in Paris by many of the European countries 

 (not including Great Britain) a "Convention pour la Protec- 

 tion des Oiseaux utiles a 1' Agriculture," which forbade at all 

 times and in all ways the killing of birds useful to agriculture, 

 especially insectivorous birds, and the destruction of their 

 nests and eggs. 



In Britain insectivorous or useful birds have not been 

 singled out for special protection, but they are, of course, 

 included in the general protection granted to all wild birds 

 during a close season instituted by the Wild Birds' Protec- 

 tion Act of 1880, and extending in each year between ist 

 March and ist August, the breeding season. Such birds 

 as are mentioned in a Schedule attached to the Act are 



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