THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



69 



BIRDS vs. INSECTS. 



BY IM. EDJUARD FERRIS.* 



[The following paper is of interest, not onlj' 

 for its originality and abilit)', but because the 

 condition of affairs portrayed therein is very 

 closely paralleled in this country at the present 

 time. Here, as in Europe where this paper was 

 written, the question of the food of birds — almost 

 entirely a question for entomologists and botan- 

 ists — has been generally ignored by these and 

 left almost wholly to the ornithologist alone. 

 Consequently, public opinion, whether really 

 right or wrong, has certainly an insufficient basis, 

 and is therefore liable to be shaken or even ma- 

 terially modified, on insufficient grounds. It is 

 partly with the hope of calling the attention of 

 our economic entomologists to a line of investi- 

 gations which, although not conclusive, is never- 

 theless indispensable to correct views of this 

 difficult subject, that this article of M. Perris' has 

 been translated. — S. A. F.j 



For several years it has been quite the 

 fashion to speak extremely well of the 

 birds, and to extol the services which they 

 render to agriculture by destroying insects 

 injurious to the products of the soil. Their 

 eulogy is found in a multitude of books, 

 memoirs, reports and notices, even the 

 names of which I should vainly attempt to 

 give. Agricultural, scientific and literary 

 societies ; general councils and legislative 

 assemblies, have resounded with their 

 praise. All the world seems to have put 

 itself in tune for a universal concert, which 

 has been undisturbed, hitherto, by a single 

 discord. 



A conviction of the usefulness of birds 

 has naturally given rise to the idea of pro- 

 tecting their lives; an uprising has occurred 

 against their pursuit by hunters and against 

 the instruments used in their capture ; 

 those who destroy their nests have almost 

 been given up to public execration ; even the 

 Senate has been besought to take measures 

 for their protection ; and a grave and 

 learned senator, acting in good faith and 

 with an eye to the general interest, has 

 embodied, in a remarkable, formal report, 

 the current charges against hunters and 

 birds-nesters, and the public feeling in 

 favor of their victims. 



The government has been irioved to 

 action. At its request, the Institute, after 

 dividing France into several zones, has 

 prepared for each of them a list, more or 



* Translated by Pmf. S. A. Forbes, from the Bull. Men- 

 icel de la Soc. cV accliinatation^ Nos. 8-12, X, 1873. 



less exact, of the birds which are resident 

 there, — that is, of those which breed with- 

 in the zone, — and of those which appear 

 there only during the migrations. This 

 list has been made the basis of instructions 

 issued to the prefects, requiring them to 

 authorize, in their respective departments, 

 the pursuit of birds of passage only, and to 

 forbid the taking of resident species ; — as 

 if the migrants of one country were not 

 the residents of another, and as if it were 

 reasonable to permit the south and centre 

 to destroy birds useful to the north. They 

 are also recommended so to restrict the 

 methods of hunting as only to allow, for 

 example, the capture of certain species, 

 with snares of a single hair ; — as if snares 

 selected their prey, and as if this were not 

 the most destructive of all methods of 

 capture. 



Does this feeling in favor of the birds, 

 now so fully developed in France, prevail 

 in other countries to the same degree ? I 

 believe that it is manifested nowhere with 

 so much warmth and unanimity as among 

 us. While we commend the birds as pro- 

 tectors of our harvests and tax our ingen- 

 uity to supply them with means and in- 

 ducements for nesting near our dwellings 

 and growing crops, the Egyptian agricul- 

 turist stands guard over his fields to drive 

 them away. The peasants of Lombardy 

 prepare nesting-places for the sparrows and 

 then destroy the nests ; and a great part 

 of Spain is treeless only because the agri- 

 culturists of that country, obedient to ideas 

 as exaggerated as our own, refuse either 

 shelter or cradle to birds, from which they 

 anticipate more injury than benefit. 



In fact, the feeling of which I have 

 spoken has not always been what we now 

 find it. Until a few years ago, while the 

 fact was generally recognized that a few 

 birds are useful to a certain extent and 

 that it was to our advantage to respect 

 these, there was a disposition to believe 

 that the protection of crops against insects 

 depended on the agriculturists themselves, 

 who, by combining their efforts, by acting 

 simultaneously against the common enemy 

 and by employing certain substances placed 



