[THE BIRD
AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. ]
The "miserly agriculturist," is the accurate and forcible expression of Virgil. Miserly, and blind, in truth, for he proscribes the birds which destroy insects and protect his crops.
Not a grain will he spare to the bird which, during the winter rains, hunted up the future insect, sought out the nests of the larvæ, examined them, turned over every leaf, and daily destroyed myriads of future caterpillars; but sacks of corn to the adult insects, and whole fields to the grasshoppers which the bird would have combated!
With his eyes fixed on the furrow, on the present moment, without sight or foresight; deaf to the grand harmony which no one ever interrupts with impunity, he has everywhere solicited or approved the laws which suppressed the much-needed assistant of his labour, the insect-destroying bird. And the insects have avenged the bird. It has become necessary to recall in all haste the banished. In the island of Bourbon, for example, a price was set on each martin's head; they disappeared, and then the grasshoppers took possession of the island, devouring, extinguishing, burning up with harsh acridity all that they did not devour. The same thing has occurred in North America with the starling, the protector of the maize. The sparrow even, which attacks the grain, but also defends it—the thieving, pilfering sparrow, loaded with so many insults, and stricken with so many maledictions—it has been seen that without him Hungary would perish; that he alone could wage the mighty war against the cockchafers and the myriad winged foes which reign in the low-lying lands: his banishment has been revoked, and the courageous militia hastily recalled which, if not strictly disciplined, are not the less the salvation of the country.
No long time ago, near Rouen, and in the valley of Monville, the crows had for a considerable period been proscribed. The cockchafers, accordingly, profited to such an extent—their larvæ, multipled ad infinitum, pushed so far their subterranean works—that an entire meadow was pointed out to me as completely withered on the surface; every root of grass or herb was eaten up; and all the turf, easily detached, could be rolled back on itself just as one raises a carpet.
All toil, all appeals of man to nature, supposes the intelligence of the natural order. Such is the order, and such the law: Life has around it and within it its enemy—most frequently as its guest—the parasite which undermines and cankers it.
Inert and defenceless life, especially vegetable, deprived of locomotion, would succumb to it but for the stronger support of the indefatigable enemy of the parasite, the merciless pursuer, the winged conqueror of the monsters.
The war rages without under the Tropics, where they surge up on all sides. Within in our climates, where everything is hidden, more profound, and more mysterious.