262 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



SPARE THE ROBINS. 



* 



\ OWADAYS, when every boy thinks himself an ornithologist, and 

 A ^ therefore entitled to steal the eggs from every bird's nest, and even 

 to destroy without mercy the sweet songsters themselves, under the 

 plea that all are destructive to the cherry crop, it is refreshing to read such 

 an article as one that appeared in the American Agriculturist for the month 

 of July, 1890, entitled " Value of birds to the Farmer." 



After referring to the foolish " Scalp Act " of Pennsylvania, by which 

 the State expended $go,ooo in- bounties for owls and hawks to protect $2,000 

 worth of chickens ! the article proceeds to speak in the following terms of 

 the robin: — " This is one of the most useful of our common birds, notwith- 

 standing it has the audacity to eat a few cherries, for which depredation it 

 is often shot by the exasperated owner. Henry Ward Beecher once said, 

 " The man who would shoot a robin, except in the fall, and then really and 

 conscientiously for food, has in him the blood of a cannibal, and would, if 

 born in Otaheite, have eaten ministers, and digested them too.' The robin 

 is one of the most useful of all our birds in destroying insects which are 

 most injurious to fields and gardens. Robins rear two or three broods of 

 young each season, and it requires large numbers of worms and grubs to 

 feed them upon. The quantity of worms required by a young robin is 

 suprisingly large, being more than its own weight, daily. Sometimes the young 

 are fed almost exclusively upon cut-worms. The horticulturists near Boston 

 once petitioned the Legislature to strike out the name of the robin from the 

 list of protected birds. A committee, one member of which was Prof. Jenks, 

 was appointed to investigate the habits of the robin. Prof. Jenks clearly 

 proved that the bird is a benefactor. From daily examination of the 

 contents of the robin's stomach, he found not a particle of vegetable food 

 from early March to the first of May. Nine-tenths of all its food consisted 

 of the larvge of the hihio alhipennis, of which from one to two hundred were 

 sometimes taken from a single bird. This larvae is very destructive, feeding 

 on the roots of plants, injuring strawberry plants, vines and other plants. 

 The fly into which this larvae developes hatches in May, and infests wheat and 

 other products. A few robins in the vicinity of a garden are the best means 

 of protecting the plants from the ravages of the cut-worm, and other 

 destructive worms and insects. A single pair of robins, in rearing two or 

 three broods of young, must necessarily destroy a vast number of worms, 

 grubs and other insects in a single season. The gardener or farmer who 

 would shoot a robin, or allow one to be shot on his premises, is strangely 

 blind to his own interests." 



