HOSTILITY TO BIRDS. 
91 
“ Not long since, in the neighborhood of Kouen and in the 
valley of Monville, the blackbird was for some time proscribed. 
The beetles profited well by this proscription; their larvae, 
infinitely multiplied, carried on their subterranean labors with 
such success, that a meadow was shown me, the surface of 
which was completely dried up, every herbaceous root was 
consumed, and the whole grassy mantle, easily loosened, might 
have been rolled up and carried away like a carpet.” 
Diminution and Extirpation of Birds. 
The general hostility of the European populace to the 
smaller birds is, in part, the remote effect of the reaction cre¬ 
ated by the game laws. When the restrictions imposed upon 
the chase by those laws were suddenly removed in France, 
the whole people at once commenced a destructive campaign 
against every species of wild animal. Arthur Young, writing 
in Provence, on the 30th of August, 1789, soon after the 
National Assembly had declared the chase free, thus com¬ 
plains of the annoyance he experienced from the use made by 
the peasantry of their newly won liberty. “ One would think 
that every rusty firelock in all Provence was at work in the 
indiscriminate destruction of all the birds. The wadding 
buzzed by my ears, or fell into my carriage, five or six times 
in the course of the day.” * * “ The declaration of the 
Assembly that every man is free to hunt on his own land 
fortunate, but not therefore less guilty—associates, have rescued by their 
pro tvess, it may be, a score of pecks of grain from being devoured by the 
voracious sparrow, but every one of the twelve thousand hatched and un¬ 
hatched birds, thus sacrificed to puerile vanity and ignorant prejudice, 
would have saved his bushel of wheat by preying upon insects that destroy 
the grain. Mr. Bedford, Mr. Heayman, and Mr. Stone ought to contribute 
the value of the bread they have wasted to the fund for the benefit of the 
Lancashire weavers; and it is to be hoped that the next Byron will satirize 
the sparrowcide as severely as the first did the prinoe of anglers, Walton, 
in the well known lines: 
“ The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet 
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.” 
