i:.\'TRODUCTION. 
Ixxi 
will satisfy their necessities and desires. The Willow-wren, the Petty- 
chaps, the Blackcap, the Sedge-bird, the Whitethroat, the Redstart, and a 
numerous list of little warblers, return again to their native shores, when 
spring leads on the painted summer, and all is mirth, abundance, and 
gaiety, to hunt for asylums for themselves and their young in our hedge- 
rows and our woods. Endowed with feelings and propensities stimulating 
to a change of climate — but denied the powers of wing with which the 
Swallow is gifted, and abhorring alike too great a degree of heat, as well as an 
extremity of cold — a temperature in unison with their feelings, which can 
supply them with food, constitutes the object of their pursuit ; and by this 
stiriiulus to change, impressed on the minds of these beautiful and service- 
able little animals, nature, ever attentive to the benefit of mankind, has, 
in this instance, conferred a blessing almost unregarded, and added a plea- 
sure universally admired. The northern climes are principally, by these 
our summer residents, cleared of the noxious races of insects ; “ the exu- 
berance in the increase of which would otherwise destroy the labours of 
Most of our residents of the Sparrow kinds assist, although, in fact, many of them live 
commonly on grain. The Sparrow itself is extremely useful, but not to the degree which has 
been asserted. Four thousand Caterpillars have been mentioned as the amount of the weekly 
destruction of one pair of birds for their young ; but such is not the fact. The Sparrow certainly 
feeds its young partly with caterpillars and partly with worms and insects, the farinaceous sub- 
stance of grain, and the pulp of fruits; but many of our summer residents live entirely on per- 
nicious insects, and confer advantage without injury. Still, if the injuries committed, and benefits 
conferred, by the Sparrow, were placed in the balance ; the scale of injury would quickly kick 
the beam. It is not a little surprizing, that the legislature should be so anxiously attentive to the 
preservation of a few species of the feathered race for the delicacy of their flesh, or the amuse- 
ment of the sportsman, for the gratification of a small portion of the community, by enacting 
laws, teeming with penalties against the poor and unqualified ; with penalties ill according with 
the spirit of legislation of a free people, and most destructive in their consequences to the very 
birds themselves, which they are intended to preserve; and yet, at the same time be totally regard- 
less of the fate of our little friends ; without the assistance of which the surface of the earth 
would soon present a scene of terrific desolation, from which the eye would recoil with horror, 
and hope itself could glean neither comfort nor consolation for the affrighted mind. 
