New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-09-24
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Utility of small Birds.

| Almost all civilized communities have passed
humane laws for the protection of game. We owe
the existence of such laws very much to the in
fuence of sportmen. Perhaps we ought not
therefore, to complain that in framing the statutes
reference seems to have been had chiefly to birds
and animals fit for game But it is not at all in
consistent with this end to include in such laws
singing birds, that now are left almost without
chance for life. One would suppose that civil.
lied man would mark his superiority over saw
age by a greater appreciation of things beautiful.
But no savage nation in the world, that we are
aware of, furnishes examples of such wanton
destruction of harmless birds, as exist among
ourselves. The former game laws Of New York
protected song birds, as we are informed But
when the present laws were adopted, former pro-
visions, including protection to robins, bobo'lnks,
catebrds, etc., were repealed. And now there is
nothing to check the gross and needless destruc-
ton of small birds.
But farmers and townspeople have an interest
in the modification and improvements OF our pre-
sent game laws. 1t is right to protect deer trout,
partridges, qnails and such like; giving them an
unmolested breeding and rearing season; but
every farmer and every townsman has an interest
in the protection of the very many other species
of creatures, except those coveted for table.
Birds are the staunch friends of every man that
raises fruit, grain, or grass. They are the consti-
tutional check put upon depredatng insects.
Every cherry that robin eats he pays for at least
five hundred times over by countless and nameless
injurious insects devoured, part of his meat diet.
Woodpeckers, meadow-larks, blue-jays, sparrows,
ROBINS, anu the WhOle trlDe OF tnruSneS, are lnde
fatigable friends of the garden and the farm. They
never boast of their services. They seem quite
unconscious of their usefulness They make no
demand upon the farmer on the score Of beauty,
song, or service. They perform their disinterested
labor OF abating the insect plague under all dis
/ eouragements, and even when requited with abuse
| and persecution. With these services thew also
orlng TO Us an amount of enjoyment in their songs
4 which no man OF sensbility can enough appreei-
! ate and, which is not whit less deserving be.
cause they sell no tickets for their concert and
| pass no hat after their performance.
/ And yet, one would think that the service and
| the songs OF birds were their vices. The eager
ness of boys to kill them the ruthless destrueton
/ OF them around towns and cities, principally on
the Sabbath day, by boys, apprentices and grown
4 mp leHts, not merely for their own excitement in
hunting them, or for their own table use but as a
| matter of merchandise, bids fair to exterminate
small birds in the vicinity Of large places unless
| laws shall interfere
Tens of thousands of small birds are sent to mar
ket, not only at seasons when, if ever they might
be shot without danger of checking their increase
hut their breeding season is also that part of the
year most inviting to the 4elds they then ruth.
leasig destroyed, nests broken up, eggs TAKEN and
whole generations shot, in the lons of their federal
| heads.
This grievance has been especially felt around
| New York and Brooklyn. Two or three very ex-
pensiye and painstaking efforts have been made to
| introduce foreign birds into cur neighborheod.
hundreds OF the English sky-lark have at several
alnerent appropriations been brought over. At
length the endeayor succeeded. They regularly
breed on Long Island. They may be heard singing
IN the ar Tor many miles back, and are gradually
| extending their circuit oil habitation But we are
] IN danger Of losing them again. The German gun.