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One morning in September, hearing shots fired
repeatedly at the further end of my grounds, and proceeding thither to
ascertain the cause, I discovered three great, overgrown boobies, with
guns in their hands, trampling down my strawberries, and shooting
bluebirds and robins. On inquiring where they belonged, they answered in
the next township. I suggested to them that I thought their own township
was quite large enough to keep its own loafers, without sending them to
depredate on me, warned them never to show themselves on my premises
again, and then drove them out. This happened to be the only occasion on
which I was invaded by any of the worthless, loafing tribe of gunners, who
roam over some neighborhoods, engaged in the manly occupation of killing
tomtits and catbirds.
For all such my aversion was as decided as my
partiality for the birds was strong. One of the little amusements I
indulged in immediately on taking possession on my farm, was to put up at
least twenty little rough contrivances about the premises, in which the
birds might build. Knowing their value as
destroyers of insects, I was determined to protect them; and thus, around
the dwelling-house, in the garden-trees, and upon the sides of the barn,
as well as in other places which promised to be popular, I placed boxes,
calabashes, and squashes for them to occupy. The wrens and bluebirds took
to them with gratifying readiness, built, and reared their families. But I
observed that the wren quickly took possession of every one in which the
hole was just large enough to admit himself, and too small to allow the
bluebird to enter; while in those large enough to admit a bluebird no wren
would build. This was because the bluebird has a standing spite against
the wrens, which leads him to enter the nests of the latter, whenever
possible, and destroy their eggs. Almost any number of wrens may thus be
attracted round the house and garden, where they act as vigilant
destroyers of insects.
These interesting creatures soon hatched out large
broods of young, to provide food for which they were incessantly on the
wing. They became surprisingly tame and familiar, those especially which
were nearest the house, and in trees beneath which the family were
constantly passing. We watched their movements through the season with
increasing interest. No cat was permitted even to approach their nests, no
tree on which a family was domiciled was ever jarred or shaken; and the
young children, instead of regarding them as game to be frightened off, or
hunted, caught, and killed, were educated to admire and love them. Indeed,
so carefully did we observe their looks and
motions, that many times I felt almost sure that I could identify and
recognize the tenants of particular boxes. They ranged over the whole
extent of my ten acres, clearing the bushes and vegetables of insects and
worms; while the garden, in which they sang and chattered from daybreak
until sunset, was kept entirely clear of the destroyers. I encountered
them at the furthest extremity of my domain, peering under the
peach-leaves, flitting from one tomato-vine to another, almost as tame as
those at home. They must have known me, and felt safe from harm. I am
persuaded that I recognized them. Yet it was at this class of useful
birds that the boobies calling themselves sportsmen were aiming their
weapons, when I routed them from the premises, and forbid the murderous
foray.
Insects are, occasionally, one of the farmer's
greatest pests. But high, thorough farming is a potent destroyer. It is
claimed by British writers to be a sure one. When the average produce of
wheat in England was only twenty bushels per acre, the ravages of the
insect tribe were far more general and destructive than they have been
since the average has risen to forty bushels per acre. Why may not the
cultivation of domestic birds like these, that nestle round the house and
garden, where insects mostly congregate, be considered an important
feature in any system of thorough farming?
Besides the wrens and bluebirds, the robins built
under the eaves of the wood-shed, and became
exceedingly tame. The more social swallow took possession of every
convenient nestling-place about the barn, while troops of little sparrows
came confidingly to the kitchen door to pick up the crumbs of bread which
the children scattered on the pavement as soon as they discovered that
these innocent little creatures were fond of them. Thus my premises became
a sort of open aviary, in which a multitude of birds were cultivated with
assiduous care, and where they shall be even more assiduously
domesticated, as long as I continue to be lord of the manor. I pity the
man who can look on these things, who can listen to the song of wrens, the
loud, inspiring carol of the robin on the tree-top, as the setting sun
gilds its utmost extremities, listening to these vocal evidences of animal
comfort and enjoyment, without feeling any augmentation of his own
pleasures, and that the lonesome blank which sometimes hangs around a
rural residence is thus gratefully filled.
One morning, hearing a great clamor and turmoil in a
thicket in the garden, where a nest of orioles had been filled with young
birds, I cautiously approached to discover the cause. A dozen orioles were
hovering about in great excitement, and for some time it was impossible to
discover the meaning of the trouble. But remaining perfectly quiet, so as
not to increase the disturbance, I at length discovered an oriole, whose
wing had become so entangled in one end of a long string which formed
part of the nest that she could not escape. The
other birds had also discovered her condition, and hence their lamentation
over a misfortune they were unable to remedy. But they did all they could,
and were assiduously bringing food to a nest full of voracious young ones,
as well as feeding the imprisoned parent. I was so struck with the
interesting spectacle that my family were called out to witness it; then,
having gazed upon it a few moments, I cautiously approached the prisoner,
took her in my hands, carefully untied and then cut away the treacherous
string, and let the frightened warbler go free. She instantly flew up into
her nest, as if to see that all her callow brood were safe, gave us a song
of thanks, and immediately the crowd of sympathizing birds, as if
conscious that the difficulty no longer existed, flew away to their
respective nests.
It takes mankind a great while to learn the ways of
Providence, and to understand that things are better contrived for him
than he can contrive them for himself. Of late, the people are beginning
to learn that they have mistaken the character of most of the little
birds, and have not understood the object of the Almighty in creating
them. They are the friends of those who plant, and sow, and reap. It has
been seen that they live mostly on insects, which are among the worst
enemies of the agriculturist; and that if they take now and then a grain
of wheat, a grape, a cherry, or a strawberry, they levy but a small tax
for the immense services rendered. In this altered state of things,
legislatures are passing laws for the protection
of little birds, and increasing the penalties to be enforced upon the
bird-killers.
A farmer in my neighborhood came one day to borrow a
gun for the purpose of killing some yellow birds in his field of wheat,
which he said were eating up the grain. I declined to loan the gun. In
order, however, to gratify his curiosity, I shot one of them, opened its
crop, and found in it two hundred weevils, and but four grains of wheat,
and in these four grains the weevil had burrowed! This was a most
instructive lesson, and worth the life of the poor bird, valuable as it
was. This bird resembles the canary, and sings finely. One fact like this
affords an eloquent text for sermonizing, for the benefit of the farmers
and others who may look upon little birds as inimical to their interests.
Every hunter and farmer ought to know that there is hardly a bird that
flies that is not a friend of the farmer and gardener.
Some genial spirits have given the most elaborate
attention to the question of the value of birds. One gentleman took his
position some fifteen feet from the nest of an oriole, in the top of a
peach-tree, to observe his habits. The nest contained four young ones,
still fledged, which every now and then would
stand upon the edge of the nest to try their wings. They were, therefore,
at an age which required the largest supply of food. This the parents
furnished at intervals of two to six minutes, throughout the day. They
lighted on the trees, the vines, the grass, and
other shrubbery, clinging at times to the most extreme and delicate points
of the leaves, in search of insects. Nothing seemed to come amiss to these
sharp-eyed foragers — grasshoppers, caterpillars, worms, and the smaller
flies. Sometimes one, and sometimes as many as six, were plainly fed to
the young ones at once. They would also carry away the refuse litter from
the nest, and drop it many yards off. A little figuring gives the result
of this incessant warfare against the insects. For only eight working
hours it will be 1000 worms destroyed by a single pair of birds. But if a
hundred pairs be domesticated on the premises, the destruction will
amount to 100,000 daily, or 3,000,000 a month!
This may seem to be a mere paper calculation, but
the annals of ornithology are crowded with confirmatory facts. The robin
is accused of appropriating the fruit which he has protected during the
growing season from a cloud of enemies. But his principal food is spiders,
beetles, caterpillars, worms, and larvae. Nearly 200 larvae have been
taken from the gizzard of a single bird. He feeds voraciously on those of
the destructive worm. In July he takes a few strawberries, cherries, and
pulpy fruits generally, more as a dessert than anything else, because it
is invariably found to be largely intermixed with insects. Robins killed
in the country, at a distance from gardens and fruit-trees, are found to
contain less stone-fruit than those near villages; showing than this bird
is not an extensive forager. If our choicest
fruits are near at hand, he takes a small toll of them, but a small one
only. In reality, a very considerable part of every crop of grain and
fruit is planted, not for the mouths of our children, but for the fly, the
curculio, and the canker-worm, or some other of these pests of husbandry.
Science has done something, and will no doubt do more, to alleviate the
plague. It has already taught us not to wage equal war on the wheat-fly
and the parasite which preys upon it; and it will, perhaps, eventually
persuade those who need the lesson, that a few peas and cherries are well
bestowed by way of dessert on the cheerful little warblers, who turn our
gardens into concert-rooms, and do so much to aid us in the warfare
against the grubs and caterpillars, which form their principal meal.
But if the subject of the value of
insect-destroying birds has been so much overlooked in this country, it
is not so in Europe. It has been brought formally before the French
Senate, and is now before the French government. Learned commissioners
have reported upon it, and it is by no means improbable that special
legislation will presently follow. The inquiry has been conducted with an
elaborate accuracy characteristic of French legislation. Insects and
birds have been carefully classified according to their several species;
their habits of feeding have been closely observed, and the results
ascertained and computed. It has been concluded that by no agency, save
that of little birds, can the ravages of insects be kept down. There are
some birds which live exclusively upon
insects and grubs, and the quantity which they destroy is enormous. There
are others which live partly on grubs, and partly on grain, doing some
damage, but providing an abundant compensation. A third class —the Birds
of Prey—are excepted from the category of benefactors, and are
pronounced, too precipitately we think, to be noxious, inasmuch as they
live mostly upon the smaller birds. One class is a match for the other. A
certain insect was found to lay 2,000 eggs, but a single tomtit was found
to eat 200,000 eggs a year. A swallow devours about 543 insects a day,
eggs and all. A sparrow's nest, in the city of Paris, was found to contain
700 pairs of the upper wings of cockchafers, though, of course, in such a
place food of other kinds was procurable in abundance. It will easily be
seen, therefore, what an excess of insect life is produced when a
counterpoise like this is withdrawn; and the statistics before us show
clearly to what an extent the balance of nature has been disturbed. A
third, and wholly artificial class of destroyers has been introduced.
Every chasseur, during the
season, kills, it is said, from 100 to 200 birds daily. A single child has
been known to come home at night with 100 birds' eggs, and it has been
calculated and reported that the number of birds' eggs destroyed annually
in France is between 80,000,000 and 100,000,000. The result is, that
little birds in that country are actually dying out; some species have
already disappeared, and others are rapidly diminishing. But
there is another consequence.
The French crops have suffered terribly from the superabundance of insect
vermin. Not only the various kinds of grain, but the vines, the olives,
and even forest trees, tell the same tale of mischief, till at length the
alarm has become serious. Birds are now likely to be protected; indeed
their rise in public estimation has been signally rapid. Some philosopher
has declared, and the report quotes the saying as a profound one, that
"the birds can live without man, but man cannot live without the birds."
The same results are being experienced in this
country, and our whole agricultural press, as well as the experience of
every fruit-grower and gardener, testifies to the fact that our fruit is
disappearing as the birds upon our premises are permitted to perish. Every
humane and prudent man will therefore do his utmost to preserve them.
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