The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-03-18
VOL. XIV.---NO. Ii

/ one more proof of human helplcssress in
! this warfare with the powers of insect de-
struction we must here refer to, as briefly
as possible. In 1852 the pine forests of
Llthuania and Eastern Prussia were at
tackled by the caterpillars of the Nome.
OF nlght-butterhy. Aware of their dan
gers, the landed proprietors, at an enor
, nous expense, resorted to the most extra
: ordinary excrtions to have these insects
collected and destroyed. In one district
alone one hundredand fifty millions of egg S
and fifteen hundred millions of the female
moths were thus taken. 1t was all in vain.
30 lmperfectly was the work done, with
: all their endeavors, that the next season
the moths were more numerous than ever
before. The finest timber of Germany on
thousands OF acres was utterly destroyed,
rendered valueless even for firewood. Mil
lions upon millions Of property were thus
) lost, and yet there can be no question that,
mad not the European Jays been nearly
exterminated in those forests, their pres
! ence would have averted this calamity
In the Rothebude district alone few hun
bred jays would have averted loss of
eighty millions of thalers.
The great value of birds-such as the
Starlings, Sparrows the Crows, the Jaws,
etc.-that feed upon the most destructive
kind of insects, has been, until very recent
~, unappreciated. Most of them have
been treated as outlaws, and in repayment
Tor their signal services have been neglec-
ted or prosecuted until the unchecked and
enormous increase of the most noxious in
sects throughout the continent of Europe
has become subject of we'll founded alarm,
calling for the Intervention of government,
both for their immediate destruction and
for the protection of those birds that feed
upon them. From these facts, two promi-
nent conclusions have been pretty surely
reached: first, that birds are indispensable
to European agriculture; and second, that
those birds most generally protected and
known as the "useful birds" are as gen
eral thing, of very little service in arrestine
the increase of those insects the ravages of
which are the most to be dreaded. These
lessons are as significant to us of America
as to the agriculturists Of Europe. When
will our own intelligent farmers awaken
both to their dangers and the only rene
dy9
An agricultural journal, the Bund pub
lished in Berne, with much ability and
force demonstrates that the enormous loss
es Detailing European agriculture can only
be arrested when man himself shall not
only cease to disturb the great equipoise Of
nature, and no longer in mere wantonness,
prejudice, superstition, or on other equal
ly worthless grounds, pcrsecute and des-
troy the natural eXterminators of insects,
but instead shall extend to them the great
est possible protection, even to the nour-
ishing and caring for them in the wintry
season.
! While this same journal finds much to
! rejoice at in cantonal laws for the protcc-
ton of useful birds, and yet more in the
general spirit in which they are observed,
it urges greater attention to instruction
upon these subjects in schools, and dwells
with much pertinence upon the radical in
completeness of the laws. The following
is as well adapted to our own meridian as
to that Of Switzerland: "For example,
when we see the (which has been
acclimated at such great expense in Amer
ica,--the Grow, the Raven, and Others of
our most useful birds still outlawed in in
dividual cantons; when we see the hunt
ing of our singing birds still allowed at GER
| tain seasons in others, and in yet Others,
that protection is only given to the small
er birds, emitting the far more useful
Owls, Buzzards, and Jackdaws, we can
but admit the incompleteness of our enact
ments, and are forced to an earnest wish
that in all those cantons where this half
legislation exists, II change may soon be
made that shall place them more in con-
formity with the present stand point of
science"
These cxhortations are pregnant with
meaning and with warning to us, for we
stand even more than the writer's country
men in need of intelligent legislation, and
far more in need of careful Investigations,
the diffusion of light, and the dissemina-
ton of truth. These words of the Bund
would surely demonstrate that the farmers
best friends are the very birds he now
most frequently persecutes. They stand
between his crops and their destroyers
They are his standing army, his police
force. Their admirable powers of flight,
their yet more wonderful gifts of vision,
and their instructive cnmity to his foes,
most marvelouslly adapt them to do duty
in field where man himself is powerless
A well-known agricultural writer and
accurate ornithologist, John Boot of Ham
burg, has ascertained by careful observa-
ton that one hundred pairs of Starlings,
with their young, will in single summer
destroy tiftyseven million larvae of the
destructive May-cnaffer. Yet so lmper-
fectly is this bird appreciated, that, as we
have seen, in Il certain canton of Swtzer-
: land, it is still an outlaw. And this be-
-. cause this most valuable bird, in default
/ of insects, and in want of necessary food,
will occasionally help himself to little
grain! 1t is to be hoped that man will ere
long learn to be at least just to such lire
Quilted benefactors. The same laws ofequity
and justice that prompt us to equip, feed,
pay our soldiers and our police, who pro-
tect our State OF guard our property, de-
mand that we both protect and foster our
feathered police, whose services, by night
J.. and by day, and at times when we are least
conscious of them, are to agriculture quite
as Indispensable.
We have dwelt at so much length upon
these recent interesting developments in
Europe, that we have left ourselves no
space i'll which to present the case of one of
our own much-wronged and slandered
birds, whose vindication at some length
was our original inducement to a second
+ reference to this topic. In previous pa
per we very briefly referred to the signal
services rendered to the farmers by our
common Blue-Jay. Inasmuch as this is
another very remarkable instance in which