BIRDS. Syn. A′ves, L. Birds, besides their value as food, play an important part in the economy of organic nature, and particularly in that of the vegetable kingdom. They are the best friends of the agriculturist and the gardener; and their presence, in numbers, appears essential to keep down the innumerable races of insects that prey upon our cereals, fruits, and culinary vegetables. M. Florent Prevost, who has for fifty years presided over the Natural History Museum of Paris, and who has, like the ancient Roman augurs, examined the entrails and stomach of fowls with scientific curiosity, avers, as the result of his long experience, that birds, of whatever sort, are an unmitigated blessing to the farmer, and that the detritus and organic particles found by inspection of them in whole hecatombs, which, by the assistance of the Royal Forest Rangers, he has sacrificed on the altar of utility, show an immense preponderance of insect corpuscula in their digestive organs, whilst the traces of cereal or other valuable products are infinitesimal in comparison. It is found that even sparrows, rooks, and owls—three of the feathered tribe the most persecuted by the farmer—are, in reality, the faithful and vigilant conservators of his fruits and crops. In one of the smaller states of Germany, where, owing to public rewards being given to their destroyers, the whole race of sparrows were exterminated, the crops failed to such an alarming extent that it became necessary to offer large premiums for the reintroduction of these useful birds from other parts. In some of the agricultural districts of France, where the destruction of small birds has been carried on with relentless activity for years, insects have so prodigiously multiplied as to attack everything green around them. Even the forest trees are, in many cases, denuded of leaves by them, and are rapidly perishing. Venomous species of caterpillars, previously scarcely known except to entomologists, have now become common; and cases of children losing their lives from attacks of them whilst birdnesting have been published in newspapers.[177] In our own country the extension of sparrow-clubs—associations disgraceful to the boasted intelligence of the nineteenth century—threatens similar results. Already the gardener finds his fruit-crops lessening year by year; and that many of them, particularly of the smaller and sweeter fruits, have become so precarious, that they now scarcely pay for cultivation. In our own neighbourhood, where small birds have for some years been destroyed by bushels at a time, it is almost impossible to raise a currant, gooseberry, cherry, or plum; whilst seedling flowers and culinary vegetables often entirely disappear on the first night after being planted, or are so completely deprived of the succulent portion of their leaves and stems, that the remaining skeleton of network in a few days withers and dies. But this is not all—the columns of our diurnals bring us continual reports of failing grain-crops in the neighbourhoods in which these bird-clubs have existed for any length of time, and that even on land previously remarkable for its fertility.[178] Did this loss fall only on the benighted beings who so wilfully cast back the blessings of an all-wise protecting Providence, it would be a just retribution; but, unfortunately, it affects the whole nation, and threatens, ere long, unless arrested by legislation, to prove a national calamity. The only apparent remedy for the evil, at present, is the diffusion of information tending to show that the farmer and the gardener, in destroying small birds, destroy their best friends.
[177] A striking fatal case of this description is given in the ‘Times’ of June 12, 1862.
[178] See the ‘Times’ and other leading ‘journals’ for 1862.
[For further information respecting birds, see Aves, Bird (antè), Game, German Paste,
Nests (Edible), Poultry, Putrefaction, Taxidermy, Trussing, &c.]
BIRKENBALSAM—BIRCH BALSAM (Dr Friedreich Lengiel). A cosmetic against wrinkles, small-pock marks, freckles, mole spots, red noses, acne, &c. 5 grammes water glass, 2 grammes potash, 1 gramme soap, 5 grammes gum arabic, 10 grammes glycerin, 400 grammes water. (Schädler.)
BIS′COTIN. [Fr.] A small biscuit. In cookery, &c., a species of confection made of eggs, flour, marmalade, and sugar, variously compounded and flavoured according to the taste of the operator.
BIS′CUIT (-kĭt). [Eng., Fr.] Syn. Buccella′tum, Pa′nis bis coc′tus, L.; Swieback, Ger.; Biscotto, It.; Bizcocho, Sp. Literally, ‘twice-baked,’ appr., a well-known variety of hard, dry, unleavened bread, made in thin flat pieces. Those prepared for seamen (SEA′-BISCUITS, CAP′TAIN’S B.[179]) are composed of flour and water only. When made of fine flour and a few caraway seeds are added, they are commonly called Ab′erne′thy biscuits. Fancy biscuits generally contain a little sugar and butter, to which almonds, caraways, mace, ginger, lemon, and other articles, technically called ‘flavourings,’ are frequently added.
[179] A captain’s biscuit differs from a common ‘sea biscuit’ in being made of finer flour.
Prep. On the small scale, biscuits are made by forming the flour and water into a dough by the common process of hand-kneading, occasionally assisted with a lever, as in making ordinary bread. The dough is then rolled into a sheet, and cut into pieces of the desired size and form. These, after being stamped, are exposed to the heat of a moderately quick oven, when a few minutes (12 to 18, according to their size) are sufficient to bake them.