74 USEFUL BIRDS. 



had been taken in immense numbers. A single child had 

 been known to come in at night with a hundred eggs, and 

 the number of birds' eggs destroyed in the country each year 

 was estimated at eighty to one hundred millions. Before 

 such persecution the birds were actually dying out. Some 

 species had already disappeared, and others were rapidly 

 diminishing. As an apparent result of the destruction of 

 birds, the vines, the fruit trees, the forest trees, and the 

 grain in the fields, had suffered much from the attacks of 

 destructive insects, that had increased as a result of the dis- 

 turbance of nature's balance caused by the decrease of birds. 

 In one department of the east of France the value of the wheat 

 destroyed by insects in a single season was estimated at five 

 million francs. It was concluded that by no agency save that 

 of little birds could the ravages of insects be kept down. 

 The commission called for prompt and energetic remedies, 

 and suggested that the teachers and clergy should endeavor 

 to put the matter in its proper light before the people. 



In 1895 I received a letter from Mons. J. O. Clercy, 

 secretary of the Society of Natural Sciences, Ekaterinburg, 

 Eussian Siberia, in which he stated that the ravages of two 

 species of cutworms and some ten species of locusts had con- 

 tributed (together with the want of rain) to produce a famine 

 in that region. One of the evident causes which permitted 

 such a numerous propagation of insect pests was, he said, 

 the almost complete destruction of birds, most of which had 

 been killed and sent abroad by wagonloads for ladies' hats. 

 A law for the protection of birds was then enacted, and, said 

 M. Clercy, "The poor little creatures are doing their best 

 to reoccupy their old places in the woods and gardens." The 

 reoccupation, however, did not go on as rapidly as did the 

 destruction. 1 



Mr. R. E. Turner, in an important paper upon insects, 

 read before an agricultural conference at Mackay, Queens- 

 land, stated that he considered that the decrease of insectiv- 

 orous birds, owing to their indiscriminate shooting by the 

 Kanakas on the plantations, had a great deal to do with the 



» The Gipsy Moth, by E. H. Forbush and C. H. Fernald, p. 206. Published 

 by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1896. 



