90 
BIRDS AS DESTROYERS OF INSECTS. 
larvae, examines, turns over every leaf, and destroys, every 
day, thousands of incipient caterpillars. But sacks of corn for 
the mature insect, whole fields for the grasshoppers, "which the 
bird would have made war upon. With eyes fixed upon his 
furrow, upon the present moment only, without seeing and 
without foreseeing, blind to the great harmony which is never 
broken with impunity, he has everywhere demanded or ap¬ 
proved laws for the extermination of that necessary ally of his 
toil—the insectivorous bird. And the insect has well avenged 
the bird. It has become necessary to revoke in haste the pro¬ 
scription. In the Isle of Bourbon, for instance, a price was set 
on the head of the martin ; it disappeared, and the grasshop¬ 
pers took possession of the island, devouring, withering, scorch¬ 
ing with a biting drought all that they did not consume. In 
North America it has been the same with the starling, the 
protector of Indian corn.* Even the sparrow, which really 
does attack grain, but which protects it still more, the pilferer, 
the outlaw, loaded with abuse and smitten with curses—it has 
been found in Hungary that they were likely to perish without 
him, that he alone could sustain the mighty war against the 
beetles and the thousand winged enemies that swarm in the 
lowlands; they have revoked the decree of banishment, re¬ 
called in haste this valiant militia, which, though deficient in 
discipline, is nevertheless the salvation of the country.f 
* I hope Michelet has good authority for this statement, but I am un¬ 
able to confirm it. 
t Apropos of the sparrow—a single pair of which, according to Mich¬ 
elet, p. 315, carries to the nest four thousand and three hundred caterpil¬ 
lars or coleoptera in a week:—I take from the Record , an English religious 
newspaper, of December 15, 1862, the following article communicated to 
a country paper by a person who signs himself “A real friend to the 
farmer: ” 
“ Crawley Sparrow Club.-Tha annual dinner took place at the George 
Inn on Wednesday last. The first prize was awarded to Mr. I. Bedford, 
Worth, having destroyed within the last year 1,467. Mr. Heayman took 
the second with 1,448 destroyed. Mr. Stone, third, with 982 affixed. 
Total destroyed, 11,944. Old birds, 8,663; young ditto, 722; eggs, 2,556.” 
This trio of valiant fowlers, and their less fortunate—or rather less un- 
