8760 



Birds. 



81. A. Richardi, Vie-ill. A very rare straggler to Formosa, though 

 a common winter bird to South China. 



Food of Small Birds. By Edward Newman. 



In the International Exhibition of last year there was a series of 

 objects which attracted no attention whatever, and which would cer- 

 tainly have escaped my notice had not Mr. Gould, whom I met acci- 

 dentally, especially pointed it out to me as worthy of examination. 

 This was the contents of the stomachs of eighteen different species of 

 birds, prepared and exhibited with the benevolent object of proving 

 that our common birds are useful rather than injurious to man, and 

 therefore worthy of protection rather than destruction. Not only 

 was the food of each species kept distinct, but also of each species at 

 different seasons of the year. The series was prepared and exhibited 

 by M. Florent Prevost, and the obvious teaching is, that birds — the 

 common and most persecuted birds — render incalculable service to 

 man by the devouring of those smaller creatures which destroy or 

 greatly damage his crops. The slaughter of birds has at last arrested 

 the attention of the legislature in France, and although I believe that 

 this slaughter did not proceed from the same hereditary prejudice 

 and ignorance as in England, but rather from what our better instructed 

 neighbours consider a love of sport ; yet, sorrowful to say, the result 

 was even more disastrous than here, and the fruitful fields were in 

 many instances reduced to a barren desert by the wanton destruction 

 of their natural protectors. 



The sportsman, the farmer and the gardener too often turn into ridi- 

 cule, or utterly reject, the idea of sparing the lives of this interesting 

 portion of the creation on the ground of humanity : for them the ques- 

 tion is only worthy of consideration in an utilitarian point of view ; 

 and therefore the utilitarian aspect is the one in which the matter 

 should be brought under their notice. We hear of a churchwarden 

 offering so much a dozen for the heads of sparrows, and we instantly 

 exclaim, " How cruel ! " and we urge on him the cruelty of his pro- 

 ceedings. It is waste of words. But if churchwardens could be 

 brought to see that the labours of those sparrows, if allowed to live, 

 would pay their income tax, of which fact I do not entertain the 

 slightest doubt, then, I think, the most ignorant, the most bigoted 

 parish-officer may be convinced ; not by hot controversy, not by subtle 



