March, 1914. 



THK GARDEN AND FIELD. 



467 



XKe Bird as tKe Farmer's Friend. 



From " I'nito-d iCnipire." 



He who studies livinjj; Vnids, 

 other animals, and id.ints, and the 

 relation which those livinij organ- 

 isms bear to one another, will 

 soon learn that the nvain effort of 

 each animal or plant is to preserve 

 its own life and produce voune or 

 seed, and so multiply its kind. 

 He will see, also, that the similar 

 efforts of other oriratiisms bv 

 which it is surrounded tend to hol;l 

 its increase in check. This action 

 and reaction of natural forces con- 

 stitute what is known as the bal- 

 ance of nature. 



Vep"etation is the prime requisite 

 for the perpetuity of all other 

 forms of life u])on the earth. The 

 greatest known enem^• to vetjeta- 

 tion is insect life, whose multitudes 

 prey not only upon the necessities 

 of mankind, but upon man himself , 

 and upon all other forms of life. 

 Although entomolasrists have ac- 

 cumulated careful descriotions of 

 over 300,000 soecies of insects, 

 they e-stimate that there remam 

 about 700,000 to be described, pro- 

 fessor Riley, in his elaborate 

 studies of the hop-vine aphis, ob- 

 served that the species developed 

 thirteen trenerations in one vear, 

 and that the average number of 

 voune produced bv each female 

 was TOO. AssumincT that everv 

 female at maturity produced its 

 full complement of vounrr he com- 

 puted that this insect, if uncheck- 

 ed to the end of the twelfth rneTier- 

 ation, will have multiplied to the 

 inconceivable nurnber of ten sex- 

 tillions of individuals. As fio-ures 

 fail to convey to the mind any 

 adecmatp conception of the fecmdi- 

 tv of this insect, T will resort to 

 space and the vielocitv of Vi'rht to 

 iDriuEf it more intelli'nbly before 

 vou. If the unchecked proonenv to 

 the end of the twellth fretieration 

 were marshalled iti a line, ten to 

 the inch, the line wouH extend 

 beyond the farthest fixed star th-it 

 the .strono^st telescop-e mi-rht 

 search out to a point so sunk in 

 the profmidity of space that li"-ht 

 travellinfr from the head of the 

 procession at a rate of T'R 1,000 

 miles Per second would renuire 

 2,^00 years in vs'^hich to reach the 

 earth. One does not need to be 

 told that the remotest anproach tr^ 

 such unchecked miiltinlii.-ation 

 vrould paralvse the hop-"To^T^ng• in- 

 dustry in one season. ■V^'h^^e the 

 aphides ma-^" represent the ex- 

 treme fecundity, there are thou- 

 sands of insect species, the tm- 

 checked increase of any one of 



which would soon overrun a con- 

 tinent. JMr. A. H. Kirkland has 

 computed that the unn-strictcd in- 

 crease of the j>ipsv moth woiikl be 

 so great that the i)ro<j,^eny of one 

 pair would produce enouii^h cater- 

 pillars in eiu'ht years to devour 

 all the foliafje in the United 

 States. A Canadian entomolo"ist 

 states that a sinjvle pair of Color- 

 ado beetles, or potato buffs, as we 

 call them, would, without check, 

 increase in one season 'to sixty 

 million. At this rate of multipli- 

 cation the disappearance of the po- 

 tato plant wotild not be lontr cle- 

 laved. The chinch bug, a fecund 

 and destructive bnsr, has been 

 found in a clump of grass 8 inches 

 in diameter to the mmnber of 

 20,000. The prosreny of this colo- 

 ny alone, if imchecked, would soon 

 become incomputable hordes, de- 

 vastating wide areas of the earth's 

 surface. Tho.se of yon who have 

 been in South Africa probably ha ve 

 .seen locusts in flight which filled 

 the air and hid the sun. What a 

 notency for evil b'ps hidden in the 

 tiny bnt innumerable eges of these 

 raveninp- oests ! 11 every eg"P" was 

 nprmitted to hatch, and every 

 younp- locust to come to maturitv, 

 the oonsenuences would be too 

 dreadful to contemplate. 



The voracity of insects is al- 

 most as astonndintj as their now- 

 ers of reproduction. I h?ive time 

 to cite one example only. The 

 daily ration in leaves of p cater- 

 pillar is ential to twice its own 

 weip"ht. If a hor.sp were to feed 

 at the same rate, he would have 

 to eat -a ton of hay everv tw^ntv- 

 four hours. Who, ox what is it 

 ■t-h^t Pre^'ents thipse ra veninrr borfle^ 

 from overnmninp- the e^rth and 

 ronsuminn^ the food supply of all ? 

 It is not man. Manv, by tbe use 

 of mechanically applied poisons, 

 which are expensive, ttnnatural, 

 and danp^erous, is able to renel to 

 an extent the attacks on his o'-- 

 chard and jrarden ? out m the fields 

 and in the forests, he becomes, 

 before any ?reat irruption of in- 

 sects, a oanic-stricken fuiri+ive. 

 Neither is it disease, or the wea- 

 ther, or anip-'als, or funcrj. or para- 

 sitic and pred^ceouc: in.sects within 

 their own r^inks. "However -lartre 

 rr.iay be the shnre of these particu- 

 lar natural a<^encies in keepinp" in- 

 .sects in check, experip'^ce has 

 shown that it is lamentablv insuf- 

 ficient. That what is it ? The 

 bird. "Rird life, by reason of 

 its predominating insect diet, is 



the most indispensable balancing 

 force in N'ature. At no period ol 

 life is a tree exempt from insect 

 depredations, and every part of it 

 from the genital seed, or nut, to 

 the terminal Inid, l)lossom, or fruit 

 is attacked. 



It should be remembered that 

 the period of growth of leaf and 

 blossom is also the nesting season 

 of birds, and that even seed-eating 

 birds now feed their young on in- 

 sects. .-\s the digestive organs of 

 birds are .so constructed and 

 equipped that they can both con- 

 tain and dispose of a very large 

 quantity of food, and as most 

 birds eat most of the time, the 

 number of harmful insects con- 

 sumed by parents and nestlings at 

 the very time when snch destruc- 

 tion is most needed is almost in- 

 credible. This shows the existence 

 of a natural economic relation be- 

 tween these three orders of life. 

 There is a sort of interdependence, 

 and the existence of each one is de- 

 pendent upon the existence of the 

 others. Rut for the trees, the in- 

 sects would Perish ; and but for 

 the insects, the birds would perish- 

 and but for the birds, the trees 

 would perish. 



We can afford to snray an or- 

 chard tree which yields an annual 

 dividend of fruit, but, mechanical 

 difficulties aside, we cannot afford 

 to spray a forest tree which yields 

 its crop once only in a. lifetime. 

 For the preservation of his for- 

 ests, man is wholly dependent on 

 the services of the bird. In the 

 woods of Canada, in the forests of 

 Africa, in the iimcr'les of India, in 

 the bush of Australia, this faith- 

 ful ally of ours, as a matter of 

 cour.se, and without any trouble 

 or expense to us, is daily accom- 

 nlishinp- on our behalf the super- 

 human ta.sk , of savinor the lives of 

 the trees. Yet we are permittinT 

 the feather trade, like a "Iflnt 

 dpvil-fiqh, to reach out its tenacles 

 into the innermost recess of the 

 forests of our Kmoire, and .steadily 

 to draw in the .skins and feathers 

 of c^'erv one of these feathered 

 ffuardians of the tree. 



The natural inter-relation and in- 

 terdependence that is established 

 between the tree, the insect. f>nd 

 the bird is also estal-'bshed be- 

 tween the insect, the bird, and 

 ei'erv other form of veo^tation on 

 the earth. In domipilin<r our in- 

 creasin"- millions in lands bevond 

 the seas we have rnven no thononbt 

 to the natural increa.se of insect 

 '^ests which invariably attends the 

 onerations of the a^'ricultairist. 

 Findincr in cultivated crops new 

 and more sttcculent sources of food 



