THH OOLOQIST 



205 



sufficiently large to print it to take up 

 and continue that part of "Birds" work. 



J. Thompson. 

 Cold Brook, N. Y. 



Bird Law Has Won Advocates in Many 



States. 



Measure to Prevent Slaughter Has the 



Support of Thousands. 



Washington, D. C, Feb. 28. — A 

 young man, armed with a 22-caliber 

 rifle, picked up from the base of a 

 fence post the body of a meadowlark 

 he had just killed, merely to prove his 

 accurrate eye. The act excited no 

 comment from a passing farmer who 

 owned the field. 



Had someone told him that the 

 young man with the rifle had careless- 

 ly thrown away a protective agent 

 worth $5 in cash a year, the farmer 

 would have inquired into the matter 

 which so closely touched his pocket. 



It is not the argument of the nature 

 lover, the tender-hearted bird lover, 

 that is being made; the United States 

 each year is coming nearer the time 

 when it will consume all its own food- 

 stuffs and be forced to import the pro- 

 duction lacking. The productivity of 

 the soil must be maintained and in- 

 creased, and birds are an essential 

 part of this scheme of economy. To 

 protect birds is to protect dollars. Not 

 once during the hearings and debates 

 on the McLean bill was anything said 

 about the brutality of killing birds 

 for fun; the argument was entirely 

 on economic and legal lines. And the 

 Senate, after bristling with objections, 

 smoothed its ruffled self when the bill 

 finally came to a crucial point and it 

 was passed by unanimous consent. 



The argument in favor of this meas- 

 ure, which provides "that all wild 

 geese, wild swans, brant, wild ducks, 

 snipe, plover, woodcock, rail, wild 

 pigeons and all other migratory and 

 insectiverous birds which in their 



northern and southern migrations pass 

 through or do not remain permanently 

 the entire year within the borders of 

 any State or Territory, shall here- 

 after be deemed to be within the cus- 

 tody and protection of the government 

 of the United States," were based on 

 facts adduced by naturalists and by 

 the Department of Agriculture. 

 Ravages of Insects. 



As long ago as 1904, Dr. C. L. Mar- 

 latt, who based his conclusions on the 

 crop reports of the Department of Ag- 

 riculture, estimates that the agricul- 

 tural losses in this country resulting 

 from the ravages of insects amounted 

 to $795,100,000 per year. This is twice 

 the value of the property destroyed in 

 the San Francisco earthquake and fire. 

 It would build three navies as large 

 as the one the United States boasts. 

 The immensity of the figure can be 

 shown in a score of other ways — it is 

 almost as large as the national debt, it 

 is nearly 5 per cent of the entire value 

 of farm products produced last year 

 and it would equal the pension roll for 

 five years. 



Were it not for birds, which have 

 been ruthlessly slaughtered for years, 

 it is believed that the vegetation of 

 the country would have practically dis- 

 appeared. Insects threaten the earth. 

 Weather, parasites, fungi, poisons and 

 birds keep down the numbers, but of 

 all these agents birds are most effec- 

 tive. 



According to the United States Bio- 

 logical Survey, the green leaf louse, 

 or aphis, destructive to hops and other 

 valuable crops, will reproduce their 

 kind, if undisturbed, at the rate of 

 ten sextillion per year. Such a popula- 

 tion would cover every inch of land 

 above water. But thirty-eight varieties 

 of birds feed on the aphis and similar 

 pests and the threatened devastation 

 is held off year after year. 



One pair of potato bugs will pro- 



