CHAPTER Y. 
THE IMPORTANCE OP BIRDS IN THE ECONOMY OF NATURE. 
“ You call them thieves and pillagers ; hut know 
They are the winged wardens of your farms, 
Who from the corn-fields drive the insidious foe, 
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; 
Even the blackest of them all, the crow, 
Renders good service as your man-at-arms, 
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail; 
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.” 
Longfellow. 
One of the German governments has lately done what 
the Egyptians did thousands of years ago, and the 
Indians and Americans have done for centuries. They 
passed a law for the preservation of birds. By this act 
they acknowledged the importance of these useful crea¬ 
tures, and recognized the benefits which we directly and 
indirectly derive from them. 
Michelet, in his extravaganza on the bird, sketches, 
with a superficiality truly French, the most gloomy pic¬ 
tures by way of demonstrating the utility of this creature ; 
for my part I do not consider it necessary, especially 
towards my German—and, therefore, educated—readers, 
to express what M. Michelet, by a number of horrible tales, 
has sought to do. The importance of the bird-world to the 
whole of animated nature is immeasurable. “ They are,” 
says Tschudi, in his inimitable work on the ‘ Zoology of 
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