THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF OUR NATIVE BIRDS. 
lay toll. A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but a complete 
absence of it is appalling. Insect pests are the cause of loss to the primary 
producer of hundreds of thousands of pounds annually, and no effort is made 
to reduce this wastage by calling to our aid the natural enemies of these 
ravagers. r 
Little or no education is given in public schools, in primary schools, or in 
agricultural colleges upon economic ornithology. The annual damage done 
by insect pests in America is stated in the Year-Book to be 700 million dollars, 
and in Canada the authorities state it to be 125 million dollars. In Australia 
we have no records, but it represents a large percentage of the value 
of the crops. An enormous amount of labour is devoted to growing food 
for insects, and,.at the same time, great effort is spént in killing or driving 
away birds which live upon the pests. Can we wonder then at the rapidity 
in the increase of the insect pests, which, in many cases, devour everything 
before them, and cannot be kept in check even by continual and expensive 
labour? There is not the slightest chance of reducing the great increase of 
labour each year until a stop is put to the criminal and senseless slaughter of 
our native birds in Australia. 
No species of vegetation seems immune from the attacks of some form of 
insect life, found in every possible form and situation, from the smallest 
caterpillar in the bud or curled-up leaf, myriads of flying pests, to the grub 
in the ground, which is eating away at the roots of the plant. Man has 
invented many wonderful machines to do all kinds of work, but he will never 
invent anything for the destruction of insect pests equal to the bird’s bill. 
These little unpaid workers are doing the work no mortal hands can do, 
and the different species are working both by day and by night. 
The answer may be made that all birds are not insectivorous. Quite so ; 
but most birds exist upon insect food during the earlier period of their lives. 
The great good rendered by bird life at nesting time is tremendous, for the 
thousands of hungry little fledglings devour immense quantities of insects 
during the time they are in the nest, and for some time afterwards. Take, 
for instance, the quail, a family of wonderfully useful little birds. The quail 
is looked upon by the sportsman as being created for nothing else but to 
supply sport and food. What a great mistake this is, for all the quails are 
of the greatest economic use to the man on the land. The quail is a very 
prolific bird, having 5, 6, 7, and often 9 or 10 chicks to a brood. The young 
leave the nest almost as soon as they are hatched out, and for the first few 
days live almost entirely upon insect diet, the insects being brought to them 
by the parent birds, and it is only stating a fact to say that in the early stages 
of its life a young quail will consume its own weight in insect life daily. Can 
one imagine the good done by hundreds of these birds and their broods in 
crops, gardens, or grazing lands? Not only does the quail destroy immense 
quantities of injurious insect life, but it is a great consumer of noxious weed 
seeds, and once these seeds have ‘been swallowed by the quail they are 
completely destroyed. The writer has taken 300 onion-weed seeds from one 
quail’s stomach, 700 pig-weed seeds, besides other noxious plant seeds, from 
another. The hunting out and destruction of the numerous insect pests, 
also the minute seeds of harmful plants, could never be done by human 
hands. 
Many of our most despised birds are of the greatest economic use. Take 
the crow, a bird towards which much prejudice is shown, despised because it 
is black, and carrion eating, called a bird of “bad omen,” yet, by investigation, 
495 
