10 OUR NATIVE BIRDS 
of Paris green and other arsenical poisons. Although 
I have no evidence and am not aware that the subject. 
has been investigated by any scientist, it seems that a 
number of insectivorous birds that are known to eat 
potato-bugs must be, at times, poisoned by eating insects 
paralysed by Paris green. It has been repeatedly 
observed that corn which has been impregnated with 
strychnine for killing gophers, blackbirds, and crows is 
at times eaten by quails, prairie-chickens, mourning 
doves, meadow larks, and other seed-eaters. 
The only way to avoid the poisoning of song and game 
birds is to restrict the use of poisons to the most serious 
cases of insect, bird, and vermin pests—to cases that 
cannot be reached by any other means. We should not 
forget that birds and animals do not commit crimes 
against us; they simply live as their nature compels 
them to. If they wage war against us, they are simply 
fighting the battle for existence, which is the divine 
right of all life, and of animals and plants as well as of 
man; it is the unalienable birthright of all nature. 
Humane nations and humane thinkers have long ceased 
to consider all means fair in war. Should not man, 
who is now so far ahead in the struggle, consider some 
means unfair in his war with the lower creatures, espe- 
cially as they cannot use unfair means ? 
We have need of much more light on the question of 
injurious birds and animals. Nearly every farmer and 
gardener is apt to exaggerate the injury caused him by 
bird or beast, because this injury is conspicuous, and is 
done within a few months, weeks, days, or even 
