7730 Birds. 



not the requisite qualifications. Moreover, let us say, en passant, 

 that the importance of the right of petition is now so fully recognized 

 by all classes, as admitted by the Senate, that our most important 

 questions have been everywhere most favourably received.* 



"Paragraph 1, — T7ie Importance of Birds to Agriculture. 



" 1. There exist in France, gentlemen senators, many thousand 

 species of insects, nearly all of them endowed with fearful fecundity ,t 

 to the detriment of our most precious vegetables, those which provide 

 food for man, wood for building purposes or burning. 



" The robust oak has for enemies the stag beetle and the Cerambyx 

 Heros. 



"The elm is infested by the destructive Scolytus. 



" The pine and the fir succumb under the attacks of Orgyia raona- 

 cha and Bostrichus typographus. 



" The tree of Minerva, the valuable olive, sees its wood perforated 

 by the Phlaeotribus ; while its fruits are devoured by the innumerable 

 larvae of the olive fly [Dacus olex). 



" The vine in many localities can scarcely resist the ravages of the 

 Pyralis. 



" Corn and other cereals are attacked in their roots by the white 

 worm (larva of the cockchaffer) ; grown up, before the ear is formed, 

 by the Cecidomyia ; later, when the grain is formed, by the Calandra 

 granaria. 



" Colza (rape) and other cruciferous plants have enemies no less 

 numerous. Different varieties of Altica destroy the plant as it shoots 

 up from the earth ; other parasites wait till the pod is formed to take 

 up their domicile therein and feed on the grain. 



" The roots of all vegetable substances are eaten up by snails and 

 other insects, while the larvae of Bruchus live concealed in peas and 

 beans, only leaving the pod. 



" * The reporter owes special thanl;s to JI. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaive, and to his 

 worthy colleague, M. Florent Prevost. 



" t The fearful fecundity of insects is one of the most established facts of Natural 

 History. In one single Phlaeotribus, so fatal to the olire, a naturalist counted 2000 

 eggs. In recent years to slop the ravages of the nonne an attempt was made in East 

 Prussia to collect the eggs. In one day, in one single verderie, four bushels, or about 

 180,000,000, of eggs were collected. In another verderie of Upper Silesia, towards 

 the Austrian frontier, in nine weeks 117 kilogrammes were collected, representing 

 230,000,000 to 240,000,000. — Dr. Gloger, in an Article dedicated to the Cardinal 

 Archbishop of Bordeaux, in the seventh volume of the ' Bulletin' of the Society for the 

 Protection of Animals, p. 322. 



