VALUE OF BIRDS TO JAN. 73 
ever any bough of the fir or the pine was broken this insect 
was found within it, and had often hollowed it out even to the 
bark. The naturalists reported that apparently the extraor- 
dinary increase of the insect was owing to the entire dis- 
appearance of several species of Woodpecker and Titmouse, 
which had not been seen in the forest for some years.! 
In 1858 Kearly wrote to the Entomclogists’ Intelligencer 
that a friend who had been spending a short time in Belgium 
informed him that in the previous year Sparrows and other 
birds had appeared in the park at Brussels in unusual num- 
bers. These birds probably were attracted by an unusual 
supply of insect food; but complaint was made of the 
Sparrows as a nuisance, and their destruction was ordered. 
“But,” says Kearly, “it now turns out that in exterminat- 
ing the birds the park goers have got rid of one evil only 
to entail upon themselves a greater. Throughout the past 
summer the place has swarmed with insect pests.” He says 
also that the larva of the gipsy moth stripped nearly all of 
the trees of their foliage, and was one of the chief offenders. 
He adds that, had the authorities known what Kirby and 
Spence say on this subject (regarding the destruction of 
this insect by birds in Brussels in 1826), they would have 
remained guiltless of killing their feathered protectors. 
During the year 1861 the harvests of France gave an un- 
usually poor return, and a commission to investigate the 
cause of the deficiency was appointed at the instance of the 
Minister of Agriculture.? The commission took counsel 
of experienced naturalists, St. Hilaire, Prevost, and others. 
By this commission the deficiency was attributed in a great 
degree to the ravages of insects which it is the function of 
certain birds to check. 
It seems that the French people had been killing and 
eating not merely the game birds, but the smaller birds 
as well. Insect-eating birds had been shot, snared, and 
trapped throughout the country. Fruit-eating and grain- 
eating species especially had been persecuted. Birds’ eggs 
* Utility of Birds, by Wilson Flagg. Annual Report of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Agriculture, 1861, pp. 66, 67. 
? Notes on the Progress of Agricultural Science, by David A. Wells. Report 
of the United States Commissioner of Patents, 1861, pp. 322, 323. 
