146 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
His voice did not prevail, though he warned his hearers of 
the evils that would befall their crops by the incessant stir of 
insects in the windrows of the hay, by the ravages of the locust 
and the grasshopper. The birds were doomed, a bounty was 
offered for the heads of crows. 
And so the dreadful massacre began; 
O’er fields and orchards, and o’er woodland crests, 
The ceaseless fusilade of terror ran, 
Dead fell the,' .birds, with blood stains on their breasts, 
Or wounded crept away from sight of man, 
While the young died of famine in their nests; 
A slaughter to be told in groans not words, 
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds! 
The summer came, and all the birds were dead; 
The days were like hot coals; the very ground 
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed 
Myriads of caterpillars, and around 
The cultivated fields and garden beds 
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found 
No foe to check their march, till they had made 
The land a desert without leaf or shade. 
And, of course, Killingworth had to recall its decision. In 
the next year birds were imported from the distant country, and 
with much ceremony were set free in time to sing joyous music 
over the schoolmaster’s wedding, 
And a new heaven bent over a new earth 
Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. 
The destructive spirit is further afield than the haunts of the 
deer or the trysting places of the birds. I am assured that the 
maidenhair fern is fast disappearing from places where it once 
was very plentiful, to such an extent is it removed from its native 
places. Happily, however, it may not wholly be destroyed, as 
it responds easily to careful treatment ; but what are we to say 
respecting the trailing arbutus, whose beauty, fragrance and 
humility are its great characteristics? It is rapidly being driven 
from the spots which it dignifies and adorns, so eager is the 
quest for it, so ruthlessly is it treated by the mercenaries who at 
every railway stopping place throw it upon us. At one time it 
was quite plentiful in the vicinity of St. John. Now there is 
