Birds. 7737 



valuable vegetables. The weevil produces from 70 to 90 eggs, which, 

 laid in so many grains of com, become larvae that eat them all up. 

 Thus one single weevil destroys a whole ear of corn. The Pyralis lays 

 from 100 to 130 eggs in as many shoots of vine. Thus attacked, the 

 shoot pines and dies. From 100 to 130 grapes are thus destroyed by 

 one Pyralis before their formation. 



"And now, if you will compare the two orders of figures which I 

 have just subr^itted to you, admitting that on 500 insects destroyed in 

 one day by a single bird there be only one- tenth of those noxious 

 creatures ; for example, 40 weevils and 10 Pyralis (and this is below 

 the mark) — that is to say, on an average, 3200 grains of corn and 1150 

 raisin- grapes [grappes de raisin), which in one day this little bird 

 will have saved you. 



" Give as large a margin as you choose to any other natural causes 

 which might have stopped the ravages of these insects ; reduce as 

 much as you choose thai of the bird, and there still remains enough 

 to justify the profound saying of a contemporary : — * The bird can live 

 without man, but man cannot live without the bird.' 



"And, in fact, who but the little bird could be continually looking 

 out for and catching the weevil five millimetres in length, while 

 depositing its eggs in a corn-field in the young, incipient grain ? Who 

 could catch the small moth when tlying about with the same object 

 in view ? 



" Who, especially, could find those minute eggs and larvae of which 

 one single titmouse consumes 200,000 in one year ?* 



" HI. Doubtless grateful man has placed these indispensable aux- 

 iliaries, these friends and faithful allies, under his special protection ; 

 he, doubtless, has endeavoured to destroy the hostile species which 

 wage war against them — the bird of prey that seizes them on the wing, 

 the snake that glides into their nest to eat the young brood, and often 

 the mother with the young ones. No, as if once more to justify the 



fable, 



' Mais tiouve bon qu'avec frauchise, 

 En mourant, au moins je te disc. 

 Que le symbole des ingrals, 

 Ce n'est poiut le serpent, c'est rbomme.' 



Yes, man, who, by a strange blindness, shows himself the most terrible 

 enemy of these gentle and useful creatures. More cruel than the kite 

 and hawk, who kill to feed, he destroys them for the simple love of 



* Gloger, p. 323. 

 VOL. XIX. 3 L 



