February 26, 1886.1 



SCIENCE. 



201 



prodigious numbers in the shallow waters, 

 especially in warm climates, such a stench would 

 arise from the excess which would necessarily be 

 washed up on the shores, that all human existence 

 about the bays would be out of the question. 

 Nature admirably provides a check to an over- 

 supply, as well as a protection to those weak in 

 numbers, and, if mankind interferes too much 

 with the harmony, retribution will surely follow. 

 Many of our birds are fast going the way of the 

 bison, never to return. If men were not held in 

 check by public opinion and the necessary laws, 

 our land would soon be as barren of all animal 

 life as are the plains of bisons. In our greed, 

 destructiveness, and lack of thought for our 

 future comfort and happiness, we are not so very 

 far in advance of the South-Sea islander, who 

 plants his cocoanut, and has not the patience to 

 let it grow, and yield a thousand-fold, but soon 

 digs it up and eats it, fearing lest he lose it alto- 

 gether, and then wonders why other islands are 

 more favored than his own. Geo. B. Sennett. 



THE RELATION OF BIRDS TO AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



The utility of the so-called insectivorous birds — 

 by which are commonly meant species which feed 

 almost exclusively upon insects, like wood-peck- 

 ers, fly-catchers, swallows, vireos, warblers, and, 

 in less degree, the thrushes — has never been seri- 

 ously questioned. The extent, however, to which 

 other species subsist upon an insect-diet is not 

 generally known or even suspected. Recent inves- 

 tigations respecting the food-habits of many of 

 our birds show some surprising results, highly 

 favorable to the species investigated. It has been 

 found, for example, that all birds are to a large 

 degree insectivorous, including hawks and owls, 

 and even plovers and sandpipers. Professor 

 Aughey, in his report on the food of the birds of 

 Nebraska, published in one of the reports of the 

 U. S. entomological commission, calls special at- 

 tention to the importance of not only these birds, 

 but the different species of the grouse family, as a 

 check upon the grasshopper-scourge. 



The great importance of the smaller birds in 

 general, including the song-birds, as a check upon 

 the undue increase of insect-life, and consequently 

 the desirability of their strenuous protection, being 

 well-nigh universally conceded, attention will be 

 briefly called to certain species hitherto more or 

 less generally under ban as injurious to agricul- 

 ture, and whose destruction is considered praise- 

 worthy. Foremost in this category are hawks, 

 owls, crows, and jays. The robin, the brown- 

 thrasher, the catbird, the chewink, and the various 



kinds of blackbirds, are also excluded from pro- 

 tection under the bird- laws of most of the 

 states. Crows are accused, with some justice, of 

 depredations upon the young corn, and of now 

 and then robbing a stray hen's nest, or of gobbling 

 up a young chicken. These last enumerated mis- 

 demeanors are exceptional, too rare even to re- 

 quire formal notice. The depredations upon the 

 young corn are easily guarded against, as a small 

 quantity of grain thrown upon the ground is 

 greatly preferred by the crows to the few kernels 

 they can acquire by pulling that which has been 

 planted. Many farmers, indeed, consider it much 

 more to their interest to feed the crows for a few 

 days than to destroy them, recognizing the fact 

 that at all other times they are among their best 

 allies ; their food consisting largely of grasshop- 

 pers, cut-worms, and other noxious insects. Why 

 the jays have been tabooed is hard to explain, 

 their pilferings being at most of a trivial charac- 

 ter, while, as destroyers of noxious insects, no birds, 

 it may be safely said, are more important. The 

 other species named above (aside from the hawks 

 and owls) are well known to levy tribute on the 

 small fruits of the garden, the robin particularly, 

 to a somewhat serious extent : while the catbird, 

 brown-thrasher, and chewink not unfrequently 

 pull the corn planted near the thickets they in- 

 habit. Otherwise these species are among the 

 most useful of our birds, whose services are to 

 such an extent recognized, that opinion is divided — 

 even among those who suffer most frcm their dep- 

 redations — on the subject of whether or not they 

 are, during the short period of the fruit-reason, 

 to be treated as outlaws. In certain portions of 

 the country, particularly in the south, the depre- 

 dations of the blackbirds upon the grain and rice- 

 fields are of serious character ; but throughout at 

 least three-fourths of the states there is certainly 

 no good reason for destroying these otherwise use- 

 ful birds. 



Hawks and owls, from time immemorial, have 

 been treated as foes, and legitimate targets for the 

 rifle or shot-gun on all occasions ; their destruction 

 having been not unfrequently encouraged by the 

 offer of bounties from the public treasury for 

 their heads. Of late, frequent protests have been 

 raised against this indiscriminate slaughter. 

 These protests come mainly from ornithologists 

 who have studied their food-habits, and become 

 convinced that their destruction is not only unne- 

 cessary, but unwise. A number of published pro- 

 tests might be here cited, did space permit, based 

 on actual knowledge of the facts in the case, and 

 giving statistics of the contents of stomachs of 

 many examples of different species of birds of 

 prey. Only a few of the statistics at hand can 



