THE BIRD 
AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. 
THE “ miserly agriculturist,” is the accurate and 
forcible expression of Virgil. Miserly, and blind, in 
truth, for he proscribes the birds which destroy in- 
sects and protect his crops. 
Not a grain will he spare to the bird which, during 
the winter rains, hunted up the future insect, sought 
out the nests of the larvae, examined them, turned over 
every leaf, and daily destroyed myriads of future cater- 
pillars; but sacks of corn to the adult insects, and whole 
fields to the grasshoppers which the bird would have 
combated ! 
With his eyes fixed on the furrow, on the present 
moment, without sight or foresight; deaf to the grand 
harmony which no one ever interrupts with impunity, 
he has everywhere solicited or approved the laws which suppressed the 
much-needed assistant of his labour, the insect-destroying bird. And 
