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FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



Sjw^ll Pet Depa.f\tivie[Jt. 



tf® 1 " All communications and contributions intended for this depart- 

 ment should be addressed to HOWARD I. IRELAND, Concordville, 

 Delaware County, Pa. 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



A WORD FOR THE BIRDS. 



It is the sacred duty of every cultivator of the soil to care 

 for and protect the birds. No matter whether he be farmer, 

 trucker, nurseryman, or small fruit grower, insectivorous 

 birds are an incalculable blessing to him. What if birds do 

 once in a while eat a little ripe fruit, pull up a few growing 

 plants, or pierce a choice tree? These same plants, these 

 very trees, the birds in the spring saved from a sure death 

 by insects ; and yet, because they now, when the insects are 

 scarce, get part of their subsistence from fruit, grain, and 

 berries, we bring out all the rusty old firearms in the house 

 with which to shoot them. Is this not the basest kind of 

 ingratitude? One insect — thousands of the same species 

 birds devour each day — will do more harm to our plants 

 and trees than the birds accomplish in the course of their 

 lives. This perhaps looks exaggerated, hut nevertheless 

 every word of it is pure truth. 



Take the birds from our land and the insects, having 

 nothing to interrupt their multiplying, will increase so 

 rapidly as to swarm over the countiy like the "plague of 

 fleas," destroying every green thing growing. We can 

 only approach this fact by considering that a female insect 

 sometimes produces over a million young at a time, and 

 these having no birds to thin them out, their number would 

 soon become enormous. 



A wren — one of the smallest of our birds — devours in the 

 course of twenty-four hours over a thousand insects. Thus 

 we see how the birds hold in sway this enormous host. 



Even the blackbird more than compensates by the grubs 

 and worms it devours in the spring for the corn it destroys 

 in the autumn. In 1749 a legal reward of three pence per 

 dozen for blackbirds was offered by the Eastern States. 

 But a total loss of crops by the depredations of insects was 

 the result of this barbarous measure, and the law had to be 

 repealed. 



In the spring, when the robin devours grubs and insects, 

 we encourage him to build near our houses ; but later in 

 the season, when insects fail him and he occasionally re- 

 freshes himself on a ripe cherry, we pepper away at him 

 with an old shot-gun. Meanwhile enough cherries are 

 rotting on the ground to suffice a hundred robins a whole 

 season. Alas, what a base return for the good he did in the 

 spring ! 



Why destroy the inoffensive ham owl ? In one night he 

 will devour more rats and mice than grimalkin can catch in 

 a week. If one makes its home in your barn, instead of 

 telling the boys to kill it, encourage it to remain. Barn 

 owls will not harm the pigeons, but will soon clear your 

 barn of rats and mice. 



King birds — one of man's best feathered friends — suffer 

 persecution because some one has circulated a report that 

 they feed almost solely. upon honey bees. This idea is 

 erroneous. Perhaps once in a great while they will eat a 

 honey bee, but very seldom. No chicken hawk will ap- 

 proach your hen-house if a pair of king birds tenant a tree 

 near by. 



Thus I might go on enumerating numerous other birds 



that suffer persecution because of false reports circulating 

 concerning their evil qualities, and refute each charge, but 

 I refrain from want of space. 



Kill your cats and encourage barn owls to make their 

 residence in your barn. It costs nothing to keep them, and 

 they never lap the cream from off the milk, eat your young 

 squabs, or kill the young rabbits ; and they will do their 

 work of clearing the premises of rats and mice much more 

 effectively than pussy. Build boxes for the martins and 

 blue birds. Put up old shoes, boots, hats— anything with a 

 hole in for entrance — all around your farm for the wrens to 

 build in — they will do it. Loan your empty chimneys to 

 the swallows. Never attempt to smoke them out, as some 

 heathen persons do. In the winter throw the crumbs from 

 the table to the little birds. Sweep up the oats, wheat, etc., 

 that lay loose on the barn floor, and give it to the larks and 

 quails. 



Thoroughly trounce every youngster you catch stealing 

 birds' eggs. Prosecute every vagrant " pot-hunter " you 

 find shooting on your premises. If you ever have the 

 "blues," vent your wrath on these destroyers of God's 

 feathered creatures ; it will do you good. Bring up your 

 children to love and protect these beautiful songsters. 



Paul Logic. 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



GUINEA PIGS. 



Somehow these pets of my childhood have fallen into 

 disrepute among the youngsters of later days. Well, no 

 matter ; I will, for the sake of gone-by days, endeavor to 

 say something in their favor. They will not bite or scratch, 

 nor are they as liable to disease as the rabbit, and are much 

 more prolific than the latter, generally having eight or ten 

 at a time. As their young seldom die, they raise more than 

 the rabbit usually does. When they are kept solely for 

 pets, I do not see but that they answer that purpose quite as 

 well as any other animal. A house for them can be made 

 from an old dry-goods box, with fine shavings or hay for 

 bedding. Their food should be oats, clover, etc. They will 

 eat anything without injury a rabbit will, and a great many 

 things a rabbit will not. Keep them in a dry place, and 

 allow them but little water, and you will never be troubled 

 by disease appearing among your pets. You need not keep 

 the buck separated from the doe ; he will not eat the young, 

 as the male rabbit does when allowed to remain with the 

 doe. 



Some say Guinea pigs will destroy rats. To this I can 

 sa.y nothing, either in the affirmative or negative. When 

 I kept them there were no rats to trouble me. But a friend 

 once told me he knew of a person who kept them during 

 the winter in a hay-mow, and that he had seen them 

 repeatedly kill rats and mice. Philo. 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



A CHEAP BIRD-BOX. 



A box for birds to build in can be very easily made, and 

 with little expense, by merely putting a peaked cover over 

 the tops of the fence posts, making an auger-hole in one of 

 the sides for the birds to enter. The plan is very simple, 

 and it will answer the purpose for which it is intended as 

 well as a more costly box ; besides, the cover preserves the 

 post from decay at the top, and adds greatly to its beauty. 



D. L. T. 



