MORE ABOUT BIRD MURDER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 5, 25 February 1871, Page 14

MORE ABOUT BIRD MURDER.

The following letter, addressed to the editor of the Independent, will be found interesting to our agricultural readers : Sib, —I see, and am-sorry to see, a paragraph which is going the round of the Australian papers repeated in the Independent, in which the writer is not ashamed to express the old i exploded prejudice against “ sparrows,” which among the ignorant farmers of the old country has led to such wicked extermination of those useful birds. In these colonies where more intelligent men are laboring at great cost to supply the deficiency of grub destroyers which at present exists, it is truly pitiable to see ignorance rearing its head amongst us, and denouncing the best friend we farmers have. The question is whether the millions of caterpillars which periodically destroy our.crops are to be allowed to go ou to increase and multiply ; or whether we are to protect these destroyers and in return for their useful labors to permit them to appropriate a thousandth part of the grain which the caterpillar Would otherwise eat. A meaner man than the president of a “ sparrow club” can hardly be imagined. People at home are getting ashamed of such folly, such wicked folly ; don’t let ua reproduce it here. Our legislators do, I believe, protect in some way pheasants and what they call game. I trust the sparrow, the rook, and other useful allies of the intelligent farmer —the Mtes noires of the ignorant and foolish—will also he placed within the guardianship of the law, !

To shew that I do not stand alone in my friendship for these creatures, nor in my appredation • of these services, I enclosee two short articles, written by Frank Buckland or by W. Kidd (joint authors of the book in which I find them, and both of them the highest authorities on such a subject), which I beg ( to recommend for insertion in your useful journal, and for perusal by such of your readers as may still be the subject of a senseless prejudice against our honest and helpful friends. A Coen-Gboweb.

It is well known that small birds are very scarce in some parts of the continent; but their destruction is not so senseless there as it is with us. They are eaten in France and Italy. They are sold in the market by scores. Monsieur brings home his pockets full, after a day’s shooting, and madame has them hung up in the larder. Signor makes, in some places, very ingenious arrangements for the capture of small birds : he spreads a Let between two trees, and sits himself high up among the branches of one of them. When the “ game” approaches, he flings a stick down at it; the poor little thing mistakes the missile for an enemy, perhaps a hawk, and dodging down between the trees to avoid it, pops into signor’s net. This, I say, is intelligible. Signora plucks the wagtail, and it smokes upon the board; but our English destructives kill under a stupid mistake. The farmer gives so much a dozen for sparrows’ heads or eggs ; a sparrow club is formed, at which prizes are awarded to the destroyers of the greatest number.

These thoughtless wholesale executioners are not probably aware of the mischief done, not by their victims, but by themselves ; and yet ib seems strange, not only that they should be so unobservant as to live in the country and remain thus ignorant of the habits of small birds, but that they should defy the accumulated testimony of naturalists. It does' not speak much for the intelligence of our middle country classes when so much popular science is disseminated, and yet a number of farmers can be found to join in a systematic slaughter of some of their best friends. No doubt sparrows eat corn in harvest—indeed, more or less, when they can get it; but they can easily be scared away during the short time that the grain is ripe for their food in the field. S

I want, however, to ask the destroyers of little birds, “ What do you think they eat during the greater part of the year, when there is no grain ? Above all, what do they feed their young with ?” Look into a nest — see the chorus of yellow mouths wide open in biind faith. Observe their unfledged and well-filled, but most certainly unpleasantlooking stomachs. 'How are they supplied ? Upon what do these insatiable little gourmands live ? Insects. All day long, from daybreak to dusk, papa and mamma are flitting backwards and forwards, from the field and the garden to the nest, and popping flies, grubs, and insects into the half-dozen hungry mouths. There is no "satisfying them. Their meal is day long. They take in at one mouthful as much in proportion as a man consumes during the whole of his dinner. Conceive a score of nests in the neighborhood of a garden. Say that a hundred mouths are being filled for twelve or fourteen hours at a time, filled, too, as fast as they can be, and what a removal of pernicious insects does not this represent !, Yet the countrymen kill these indefatigable scavengers, because they pick a little corn.

It is not, however, during the breeding time that they transfer mischievous insects from the plant to their young broods, but before and afterwards they are themselves incessantly on the alert for grubs, and other plagues of the farmer and the gardener. Watch a lawn, or a hedge-row, for half an hour, and see how caeseless is the consumption of insects. The swallow snaps them up as he skims over the grass, or threads the stream. The wagtail

runs right and left in a prompt, successful sort of way. Every time he makes one of those sudden little charges, he has caught and disposed of his prey. See the thrush, with long elastic hops, busy among the vegetables. He is revelling among caterpillars, or perhaps he -is snail-nunting. See, he lias got one, and trips one side to settle matters with him. He can’t swallow a snail, shell and all; so the thrush proceeds to get rid of this.incumbrance. Seizing the snail, by what we will call the nape of the neck, he whacks him with all his might on a stone. Off comes a great piece of shell. Whack again. Poor snail !it must be very unpleasant, for you; we won’t watch the whole process. Presently Mr Thrush hops gaily out into the world again, with a smile on liis countenance, and begins to look for another. The appetite of these birds is prodigious, their digestion powerful and rapid. Beside those I have mentioned, think of the crowd of soft-billed birds, all grub-hunting. What numbers, whose very name is “ Flycatchers!” How many are classed under the title of “ Insectivora !”

There are some wild birds which, I grant you, must provoke the farmer immensely. A flock of wild pigeons in a field of ripe peas really consume a valuable share of the expected crop. But the rook is shamefully libelled. I have read with the deepest indignation of their destruction by poison. No doubt they like a change of diet sometimes ; but if you want to know what they love, look at a field being ploughed. See how eagerly the rooks pounce down upon the fresh-turned furrow. They are then doing incalculable good to the farmer —they are saving his crop from the wireworm ; and in return he poisons a rookery. The birds fall from their familiar trees, where they have bred and cawed in security for years. One after another yields to the mysterious influence. The many-wintcred crow loses his foothold, and comes writhing down. The mother of the summer’s brood drops beneath her nest. The charm of a countryhouse is poisoned. Farmer Numskull has “ sarved nut them there thieves of rooks, at last,” he says. I’ll tell you what: I wish somebody could persuade him to make a pie of a few; a little uneasiness under that great waistcoast of his would serve him right; and if I had the curing of him when thus disturbed, I would take measures calculated to impress the recovery upon him. No homespathic infinitesimal doses would I prescribe.; but I would give him, and repeat the dose, if he could be approached a second time, let me see —I hardly know what just now, but it should be something like a horseball. But seriously, this destruction of small birds is a grave question. In France legal measures have been taken to stop the mischief from proceeding, and to remedy the past. Here, in England, the police could hardly interfere. The common sense and common observation of residents in the country must be aronsed and appealed to. Above all, let the farmer reflect upon the questions, how do small birds live during that great portion of the year in which they can get no grain f how are their broods fed ? If you really believe, as you do, that small birds affect your crop, is it not worth while to look for yourselves, and see what they and their families consume so busily during the spring ? Is it not worth while to calculate what those grubs and insects would produce and consume during the summer ? They are more voracious than even the sparrows, and they do, most unquestionably, feed upon the produce of your land. And yet you destroy those quick little eyes-, wnich alone can spy them out, and put poison in those nimble beaks which alone can reach them. In them you have living microscopes and tweezers, which hop about and manage themselves with inimitable accuracy and unwearied success. Do you think you could replace them with clumsy thpmbs, hired at sixpence a day ?—“ Birds and Bird Life.”