THE IMPORTANCE OF BIRDS, ETC. 249 
of the plague, I made up my mind that I must inevitably 
lose all my trees. Towards winter, however, numerous 
flocks of Titmice and Goldcrests made their appearance 
day after day; and, to my intense delight, I perceived a 
daily decrease in the ranks of the enemy. In the spring 
no less than twenty pairs of Titmice selected my garden 
as their breeding-place; whereas in other years I rarely 
ever found more than two or three nests. In 1849 the 
pest had sensibly diminished; and in 1850 I had the 
pleasure of seeing my trees so thoroughly purified by my 
little feathered gardeners, that through their instru¬ 
mentality I again saw my orchard in full leaf the whole 
summer long. In the year 1842, I counted no less than 
two thousand plant-lice (. Aphidce ) on three large rose- 
stocks in my green-house. I immediately introduced 
a Marsh Tit into the building; and in the course of 
a few hours every insect had disappeared.” 
My father always called the Woodpeckers, and other 
climbing birds, the “benefactors of the forest;” and 
strongly opposed the erroneous idea that these birds 
injure the timber by their operations. This is in nowise 
the case, for Woodpeckers never, by any chance, attack 
sound wood, but, on the contrary, seek out the sickly and 
decayed places, in which numerous insects breed. All 
well-informed foresters are agreed on this point. Ratze- 
burg, in his work on the ‘ Spoilers of Forests and their 
Enemies,’ says distinctly: “ Old hollow trees, as well as 
those covered with ivy and other creepers, should be 
allowed to stand, so as to afford nesting-places for 
birds.” 
Undoubtedly, the equilibrium between the plant- and 
animal-world is maintained principally by the Scansores: 
Titmice, Goldcrests, and other insectivorous birds, 
