38 Bird Day Book 



Through its predominating insect diet, and on account of its 

 exceedingly rapid digestion, the bird becomes the most indispensable 

 balancing force of nature; without its assistance, man, with his 

 poisons, the weather and animals, as well as the parasitic predaceous 

 insects, would be helpless. The author then states how the bird is 

 a benefit to man in a great number of ways ; in checking insect inva- 

 sions, in preserving forests and orchards ; their service in the mead- 

 ows and gardens ; their value in protecting live stock, and their 

 usefulness in the preservation of health and elimination of disease. 



Remarkable instances of the birds' service to man include the 

 introduction of the English sparrow into New Zealand with the 

 resulting elimination of the thistle and the caterpillar, which were 

 ruining the land and crops, and the saving of Australian agricul- 

 ture from the grasshoppers by the straw-necked ibis, in individual 

 craws of which an average of 2,400 grasshoppers was found. The 

 story of Frederick the Great, wherein he is alleged to have ordered 

 all small birds killed because the sparrows had pecked at some of his 

 cherries, and the resulting lack of fruit but fine crop of caterpillars 

 two years later, proves a graphic lesson. The "Scalp Act" of Penn- 

 sylvania, which paid in bounties $90,000 for the extermination of 

 hawks and owls, lost for the state $3,850,000 in damage to agricul- 

 ture, due to the increase of small rodents which resulted. When 

 Montana was free from hawks and owls it became so overrun with 

 destructive rodents that the legislature offered rewards for them — a 

 task which the banished hawks and owls had performed free of 

 charge. But during the first six months such large sums of money 

 were paid out that a special session of the legislature was called to 

 repeal the act before the state went bankrupt. In 1912 Lord Kitche- 

 ner pointed out the necessity of prohibiting the destruction of certain 

 Egyptian birds, which prevented insect pests. 



In closing Mr. Buckland makes a plea for the preservation of all 

 birds as a valuable natural resource, stating that if their destruction 

 is not checked, there will be wrought a mischief, a universal disaster, 

 greater than words can express. 



