VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN. 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. 1 



In 1858 Kearly wrote to the Entomologists' 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. 2 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 



1 Utility of Birds, hy Wilson Flagg. Annual Report of the Massachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture, 1861, pp. 66, 67. 



2 Notes on the Progress of Agricultural Science, hy David A. "Wells. Report 

 of the United States Commissioner of Patents, 1861, pp. 322, 323. 



