158 EGYPTIAN BIRDS 
decrease. Of the decrease there is no doubt, and 
I have been told that now the natives—the men 
who till the soil and benefit by its products— 
openly say that certain insect pests the much-valued 
cotton suffers from nowadays is due, in their opinion, 
to the reduced number of “little white birds” 
who used to come in flocks, by hundreds, and search 
and find and devour these same insect pests. 
