4 
certainly ensue if we were to be deprived of the services of our 
feathered defenders. Without them we should be powerless 
to check the ravages which would be committed by the swarms 
of slugs, snails, caterpillars and injurious grubs which would 
overrun our gardens and fields. Who can estimate the amount 
of weed-seeds those flocks of small birds ranging the fields day 
after day consume ? It is no use a man saying he would 
rather do without the birds, and destroy the insects and weeds 
himself. He could not do it! It is true that the birds do do 
us some damage ; that they do claim some of the fruit in 
autumn—(and what a lot is wasted in almost every garden !)— 
some of our grain in winter, and something in the way of 
salad or vegetable food in spring and summer. But we ought 
not in times of insect scarcity to grudge them a minute 
fraction of those crops which they have preserved for our use 
from their insect foes ; crops grown on the land they have 
helped to keep clean and free from weeds. 
it-. * : * 1 Jt i . . i . . / J 
After all, the wages are very small. The work must be 
done ; only the birds can do it. They will never strike ; but 
do not let us try and “ dock” their well-earned wages, or to 
starve them out in hard times. If we do, we may find (when it 
is too late) that when the land ought to have been cleaned of 
weed-seeds and insects we were short-handed, and that the 
work has been “ scamped.” We may even, in long-continued 
hard weather, have to give a little out-door relief when work 
and wages alike lie buried under the snow. 
r o. v. APLIN, 
Member of the British Ornithologists' Union. 
Author of the “ Birds of Oxfordshire.” 
Copies of Leaflet, 3d. per doz., or 1/9 per 100, also Cards of Membership can 
be obtained from Mrs. Phillips, Vaughan House, Croydon; Miss C. V. Hall, 11, 
Morland Road, Croydon ; or the Hon. Sec., Mrs. Lemon, Redhill, Surrey. By 
paying an annual subscription of One Shilling members may become Associates of 
the Society, and will be entitled to receive the Annual Report and notice of all 
General Meetings. 
