7736 Birds. 



" Pointing out the ravages committed by these little nibblers in the 

 fields and plantations, Buffon gives an idea of how they multiply ; in 

 three weeks he had caught more than 2000 in a plantation of 40 acres.* 

 According to observations made by the English naturalist White, a 

 pair of white barn owls destroy daily at least 150 little nibblers. 

 Where is the cat that could give such a result ?t Let us add that it 

 is these birds alone that can give chase to moths and nocturnal 

 insects, many of which are most destructive.t 



" Finally, gentlemen senators, but incontestably in the first rank 

 for the service they render us, come the birds that live on insects only 

 {les oiseaux purement insectivores),\ — creepers, woodpeckers, fern 

 owls, the various species of swallows, but especially the charming 

 songsters of the fields ; all these are insect-feeders, vulgarly designated 

 under the collective expressions of peiits-pieds or bees-fins — nightin- 

 gales, thrushes, blackcaps, redbreasts, redstarts, wagtails, grasshopper 

 larks, pewets and wrens, all of which vie with each other in rendering 

 us inappreciable services, as gratuitous as they are badly rewarded, 

 because their value is not properly estimated. 



"Allow me, then, to quote an example which M. Prevost gives 

 respecting the martin. Ten of those birds were killed between the 

 15th of April and the 29th of August, at the close of day, as they were 

 returning to their nests. The insects of which the remains were found 

 in their stomachs amounted to no less than 5432, giving to each day 

 for each bird an average of 543 insects destroyed. Another statement 

 gives analogous results to the hedgesparrow, and among the insects 

 thus destroyed figure precisely our most formidable enemies — the 

 weevil, the Pyralis, the cockchaffer and a host of others. 



" You will easily understand, gentlemen, the mischief done by these 

 insects if you call to mind that the cockchaflfer deposits from 70 to 100 

 eggs at a time, which soon are transformed into white worms, which 

 for two or three years live exclusively upon the roots of our most 



there allowed one centime a dozen for them, and at that price the more stilful catchers 

 earned 22 sols a day. They invaded the barns in such numbers that more than 2000 

 were killed in a small barn which had been cleared out to be cleansed. 



" * Buffon, ' Histoire Naturelle,' tome viii., p. 328 and following. 



" t Tschudi, p. 23. ' Memoire de M. Chatel de Pire.' Letlre de M. Leroy 

 Girardot au Journal du Loiret. 



"t Tschudi, p. 23. 



" § In France there are sixty-nine species, of which twenty-fi?e only are resident 

 {sidentaires). 



