In winter, if you have an apple tree near your home, you can watch the hungry woodpecker getting his dinner. He runs up the trunk, digging into the bark for insects and insects' eggs. Almost seventy-five per cent of his food is made up of insects.
Perhaps you have read of the army worm and of the harm it does to grass and grain. In a single night a green field attacked by this pest is made brown and bare. In 1896 the damage done in Massachusetts by this worm was estimated at $200,000. As soon as the birds discover that the army worm is at work, they come flocking from long distances. No farmer could summon helpers so promptly. Kingbirds, phoebe birds, cowbirds, Baltimore orioles, chipping sparrows, robins, English sparrows, meadow larks, crows, golden-winged woodpeckers, and quail eat the army worm, but of all these helpers, none is so valuable for this work as the red-winged blackbird and the crow blackbird.
About fifty years ago, caterpillars were destroying an immense forest in Europe, when suddenly a flock of cuckoos appeared and saved the woodland. During the great locust invasion of our own western country, when the farmers had given up the battle, an army of birds would sometimes alight upon a field and save the crop.
Swallows live entirely upon insects, and a very large proportion of the food of most of our birds is made up of insect life. Thirty-eight kinds of birds have been seen to feed on some form of the gypsy moth, and they are not expecting the salaries that are paid to government agents. The sea-gull is another official on a small salary. He is the best health- inspector of our coasts, for he not only sees what is to be done, but does it himself, promptly and well. The little tree-sparrow, in Iowa alone, destroys more than a million harmful seeds every year.
Sometimes, it is true, the birds eat the fruits that men have taken pains to raise. "What little thieves they are!" says the gardener. "Please tell me," says Mr. Robin, "how I am to know that you care so much for some kinds of fruit, and so little for others? If you would plant shad-berries for me, I would not eat so many strawberries. In September I should be quite willing to make a dinner of choke-cherries, if they were as conveniently near as your grapes. Perhaps, in time, you will learn to be more careful in your planting. Why not protect your fruits by planting wild varieties that we like?"
Mr. Lawrence Bruner says: "If we take pains to water our birds during the dry season, they will be much less apt to seek this supply from the juices of fruits so temptingly at hand." He suggests placing little pans of water in the orchard and vineyard.
There is another side to the same question which is worth considering. Not only does the agriculturist know how useful birds are to us, but every child can tell us of the pleasure they give. One does not have to be a poet to know the beauty of the birds. What would spring be without the bluebird, or June without the oriole? To the eye and to the ear alike they are a joy.
From a selfish point of view, then, it is folly to let the wholesale destruction of birds go on. We are losing more than we fully understand. But can there be no other motive than a selfish one? Have the birds no rights which we are bound to respect? Must their claim to life be based on the fact that they do us good or give us pleasure? We are hopeless tyrants if this is true. Let us not be content with the smaller question, What can the birds do for us? but ask ourselves the larger one, What can we do for the birds?
"THE BRAVEST ARE THE TENDEREST."
It is remarkable how many great men have been noted for their interest in birds and beasts. We have seen how devoted Scott and Dickens were to their pets. Daniel Webster's dying request was that his beloved cattle might be driven by his window, so that he might see them once more. Abraham Lincoln often went out of his way to do a kindness to some weak or suffering creature. [Footnote: The following incident is related by one who knew Lincoln: "We passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees, and stopped to water our horses. One of the party came up alone and we inquired: 'Where is Lincoln?'