A Day-long Meal.

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there is no grain? Above all, what do they feed their young with?" Look into a nestsee the chorus of yellow mouths wide open in blind faith. Observe their unfledged and wellfilled, but most unpleasant-looking 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, &c., &c., into the halfdozen 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 neighbourhood 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 themselves are incessantly on the alert for grubs, and other plagues of the

106

The Appetite of Birds.

farmer and the gardener. Watch a lawn, or a hedgerow, for half an hour, and see how ceaseless 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 in caterpillars, or, perhaps, he is snail-hunting. See, he has got one, and trips on 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 his countenance, and begins to look for another. The appetite of these birds is prodigious, their digestion powerful and rapid. Besides those I have mentioned, think of the crowd of softbilled birds, all grub-hunting. What numbers, whose very name is "Flycatchers!" How

Farmer Numskull.

107

many are classed under the title of "Insectivoræ !"

There are some wild birds, which, I grant you, must provoke the farmer immensely. A flock of wood-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-wintered crow loses his foothold, and comes writhing down. The mother of the summer's brood drops beneath her nest. The charm of a country house is poisoned. Farmer Numskull has "sarved out 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 waistcoat of his

108

Use common Observation.

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 homoeopathic 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 aroused 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? 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? And yet you destroy those quick little eyes, which alone

Living Microscopes and Tweezers.

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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 thumbs, hired at sixpence a-day?