ELLIOTT COVES. 17 
furnished by certain insects, became to the tiller of the soil 
an innumerable host of new enemies, a myriad plague. In 
fine, birds and insects both assumed new relations to the 
human race when agriculture began, and this relation was on 
the part of birds helpful, on the part of insects hurtful, with 
few exceptions in either case. Nay, more; the pristine 
farmer we have in mind had not only to contend with insects 
as they were when agriculture was first practised, but with 
increasing numbers to which tilling of the soil and cultivation 
of plants gave rise; for every farmer breeds insects which 
would not exist but for his labor, as surely as he raises stock 
upon his land. It also happens to be a fact in nature, that 
the bird-world and the insect-world are things apart, separate 
and antagonistic. Nearly all birds are insectivorous, to 
some extent, and very many birds eat nothing but insects. 
In their reciprocal relations, bird-life and insect-life offer one 
of the most remarkable systems of checks and balances to 
be observed in all nature ; and with no natural order of 
things can man interfere with impunity. The damage done 
to agriculture by noxious insects is simply incalculable; no 
expert entomologist hesitates to place it at many millions of 
dollars a year, in our own or any other great country where 
farming is a national industry and a main source of wealth. 
This result is in spite of all the contrivances which the 
ingenuity of man has devised to hold insects in check; and 
all his efforts to that end are insignificant in comparison with 
the silent, ceaseless work done by birds in his behalf. It is 
not too much to say that successful agriculture would be 
impracticable without the help of birds; and I do not think 
more need be said, from the standpoint of sheer utilitarianism. 
The usefulness of birds as insecticides is measurable in 
money—and that is something everybody can understand. 
Thus the birds are a great army, self-equipped, self- 
maintained and self-ordained, to wage war on a grand scale 
against our national foes, their natural prey. Yet this is not 
the whole of their good work. They campaign against many 
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