xvi THE HUMAN SIDE OF BIRDS 



sell them! Many more thousands are killed for 

 their flesh, and often men murder them only for the 

 mere gratification of a low passion for destruction 

 of life. Thus species after species, the world over, 

 has been exterminated, and in many countries only 

 the most rigorous game laws prevent wholesale an- 

 nihilation. 



How short-sighted is man! Even if he cannot 

 realise that he is killing a fellow creature in feath- 

 ers, a being which has joys, hopes, ambitions, and a 

 well-filled life — one that is quite as necessary to the 

 world's economy as his slayer — ^he ought easily to 

 see that he is forcing to extinction an agency which 

 is a conserver of civilisation itself. As Michelet 

 truly says: "Barbarous is the science, the hard 

 pride, which disparages to such an extent animated 

 nature, and raises so impassable a barrier between 

 man and his inferior brothers!" 



To-day every one is awakened to the necessity of 

 forest preservation. The day that our woodlands 

 fall below a certain minimum area, that day our 

 decadence will begin. The day that our birds are 

 slaughtered to a certain point, that day the forests 

 are doomed. The birds perform invaluable serv- 

 ices in keeping down the nimibers of destructive 

 insects, which, if allowed full sweep, would speedily 

 destroy all trees, Of the vast sums of money now 



