IS IT WASTED?

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 496, 1 May 1909, Page 8

IS IT WASTED?

£1430 SPENT ON BIRD-KILLING. ', Opinions .differ as 'to the amount of harm —or good—that small, birds.! do. When, therefore, one reads that the Selwyn County Council, last year, spent £1430 for the destruction of small birds, and their ..eggs, ono is .tempted to ask: "Was. it wasted?" in view of the prevalence of caterpillars in the season just past, tho question carries increased significance. Birds, it is known, eat caterpillars in large numbers, but it, does not necessarily follow that they devour sufficient numbers to constitute an, appreciable protection to crops, or even that i they devour enough to pay for their-wage's. Tho wages of somo of tho birds arc very heavy. The sparrow, perhaps, is the dearest labourer of all. Ho takes liis wages chiefly in the form of grain. Some , years ago tho sparrow is said to havo been more numerous than it is to-day, but even'then there, were caterpillar plagues. It is,. thereforo,\>not at nil clear whother the . caterpillar plague cf tho past season was duo to' a decreaso of small birds—-duo, for instance, to the £1430 spent in Selwyn county for their destruction—or whether the caterpillars merely flourished in spits of' tho birds. . Probably when conditions of climato and food supply favour a development of caterpillar plague, that plagno will develop in spite of all tho sparrows that New Zealand is ever likely to produce. A weakness that is charged against the sparrow euro for caterpillars is that when the caterpillar comes, the grain crops aro usually in ear, and .the sparrow, which; in tho absence of corn, would welcome a meat diot, turns now from tho caterpillars to, assist in tho attack, on the farmer's crops. Mature rarely provides an out-and-out, euro for any' insect. , Nature is only interested in preserving a balance, and preserving that under liatiiral conditions. A farm is not a' perfect part of nature, and when men cultivate, in largo areas the special food'of somo insect or bird, that insect or bird, may be expS.tul ■ to weigh - aown temporarily its particular end of Nature's see-saw. The balance,. in'tho caso of caterpillars, is restored maiiily by the increase of the ichneumon flies which . prey upon them; for, as the farm crops aro good for tho caterpillars, so are the caterpillars food for the ichneumon flies. Tho ichneumon flies, again, aro the food of some birds, but'probably not 'much for the sparrows. It is not considered that tho sparrow does injury by protecting tho caterpillar from 'its insect enemies, but it is certainly made—perhaps deservedly—tho scapegoat when tho yield of grain per aero is low. It has few'friends; among tho farmers, and 1 its unpopularity is no doubt well earned. It will bo Lard to convince tho farmers that the.' sparrow's wages aro reasonable, and possibly Selwyn's £1430 has returned a profit. But tho sparrow can never now be totally eradicated,' and Selwyn must discuss its little bill as an annual disbursement. ' Whether Selwyn is doing moro than its own'share of the sparrow fighting. is entirely another 'question, perhaps, like tho Itoyal Show, it is an honour.that ought to f*o round.