236 
Destructive Insects and Utility of Birds. 
slaughter which for weeks together is the chief delight of the 
population of Italy, it is sufficient to mention that in one district 
on the shores of the Lago Maggiore, the number of small birds 
annually destroyed amounts to between 60,000 and 70,000 ; and 
that in Lombardy, in one single roccolo, 15,000 birds are often 
captured daily. In the neighbourhood of Bergamo, Verona, and 
Brescia, several millions of birds are slaughtered every autumn, 
and the exterminatory fever rages quite as violently in the more 
southern districts. In Sicily, for instance, during ten days in 
autumn, nearly 1,000,000 of larks arrive daily on the coast, and 
immediately on their appearance are met by a continuous file- 
firing from hundreds of sportsmen, who bring them down in 
thousands. 
This purely Italian* mania has penetrated into Switzerland, 
in the Canton Ticino, where no prohibitory laws exist to pre- 
vent the increasing fondness for the sport ; the inhabitants 
entrap on the frontiers of their canton, on the St. Gotthardt and 
the Grison mountains, as many of the songsters, when they 
attempt to migrate, as they possibly can. But we on this side 
the Alps especially suffer from such wanton proceedings, and we 
witness the consequences in our fields and woods. We cannot 
prevent the Italians from indulging in their absurd and barbarous 
amusements, but we can lessen the evil in some degree ; and it 
would be but consistent with the proverbial good sense of us 
Germans if we were to protect all the bird tribe with a solicitude 
proportionate to the mad attacks made upon them southwards, 
and thus in some degree reinstate the order of Nature, and aid in 
re-establishing the necessary balance between the insect world 
and its enemies. AVe have two ways of accomplishing our 
object — by lavouring in divers manners the propagation and 
increase of our most useful sedentary birds, and by affording 
good asylums and hearty protection to birds of passage during 
their summer sojourn. 
It is, however, preposterous to depend entirely on artificial 
means for a complete restoration of Nature's laws ; the force of 
reproduction is so prodigious amongst inferior animals, that man 
will never be enabled to combat alone successfully their periodic 
invasions. On the borders of the Rhine, the Attelahus bacchns 
damages the vineyards, and the Anthonomus and Phalena the fruit- 
trees, to an extent which may be valued at several hundred 
thousand thalers (3s.) annually, Avithout a remedy against such 
havoc having as yet been found. Near Torgau, several thousand 
thalers have been annually expended on the forest of Annaburg, 
* M. de Tschudi forgets to mention the passion for mauviettcs existing in the 
South of France, which national dish is nothing but a fry of every description of 
small birds. — Note of English Translator. 
