Birds. 7739 



" Moreover, this miserable excuse of satisfied sensuality cannot 

 even be invoked by these chasseurs, who, by way of showing their 

 skill, will fire at a swallow, perhaps carrying food to her young brood. 

 To these men, cruel from thoughtlessness, we may be allowed to 

 observe that, by destroying 500 insects during the day, that swallow 

 had rendered a greater service to humanity than if ten chasseurs had 

 returned home with full bags. 



" Is it not, also, from sheer ignorance that the peasant nails against 

 his barn door the owl, the fern owl, and other birds by which his 

 unhappy skill has deprived his fields and granaries of their natural 

 protectors ? Why does he not rather nail up his cat ? 



" And as if it was not enough that man should cany on this war of 

 extermination, behold the very children in youthful carefulness — ' that 

 age without pity,' as La Fontaine styles it — devoted to bird-nesting. 

 Eggs or birds, all the same to them. They break the first and 

 torture the others to death. 



" And the parents of these young monkeys, instead of whipping 

 thera and sending them back to school, placidly tolerate these acts of 

 cruelty. Parents and children are probably ignorant of that noble 

 passage of Scripture, — ' If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in 

 the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones or 

 eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou 

 shall not take the dam with the young; but thou shalt in any wise let 

 the dam go and take the young to thee ; that it may be well with 

 thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.'* 



*' In default of knowing Scripture they ought, at least, to know 

 their own interests. 



" The amount of mischief done in this respect is incalculable. 

 Some children have brought home a hundred eggs in one day.* 



" How have these defenceless species been able to survive this 

 determined warfare ? That is one of those mysteries which can only 

 be explained by the wonderful goodness of God, who incessantly 

 redeems the faults of his favourite creature, man. 



" * Deuteronomy, chap. xxii. verses 6 and 7. [Note of Translator. — The quota- 

 tion in the French is not correct ; it says, " Thou shalt not take either the dam or the 

 young ones." Deuleronomy justifies taking the young ones.] 



" f According to an approximate calculation, M. Gosselin estimates the number 

 of birds' eggs destroyed annually in France at 80,000,000 to 100,000,000. It is by 

 thousands of milliards that must be counted the insects which the birds produced by 

 those eggs would have destroyed. — Note (manuscrile comviuniqvie par M. G. Saint 

 Hilaire). 



