The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1879-01-23
CLAY ON CROWS.

Cassius M. Clay Raises Hts Voice in Behalf
Plaques of Egypt.
Cassius M. Clay writes to the Rich.
mond Register as follows was pain
ed to see in your journal lately an &C.
count of the slaughtering of the crows,
without protest.
Nature seems to have provided fol
the greatest sum of animal life. First
vegetables, then insects, and then high.
er animals, man standing at the apex.
All insectivorous birds are the allies ol
man; without birds the human race
would have hard struggle for exist.
ence, and would perhaps be exterminat.
ed. Over all the world the great
breeders of famine-tke locusts and
grasshoppers-are ruinous only where
birds cannot exist.
The swarms of locusts, which the
Bible tells infested Egypt, exist yet,
and will exist until trees shall be
planted or caused to grow in all places
where grass grows then the
birds will have come and destroyed
the locusts. So the same law pre-
walls in interior Africa and in
the United States. All along the
Platte river for hundreds of miles,
wherever I saw few trees and shrubs
there were hawks lowering over to
pounce down upon and destroy the
birds. The prairie chickens are de.
stroyed by man, and between those two
allies the birds are lost and the locusts
spread ruin; every green thing is eaten,
and men fly for life to other lands OF
perish
The phylloxera in France, small in
sect, has inflicted, by the ruin of the
vine, more loss than the German war
In early years our State was full Of
woodpeckers and kindred birds. They
ate some apples end other fruit; oul
fathers destroyed them. Then our veg
etables were fine and perfect; after the
birds have been killed we are overrun
with insects; perfect fruit and vegeta-
bles are now almost unknown.
I believe that the quails or par
tridges, though gramnivorous, also de.
stroy many insects. Whilst all our
other birds feed mostly upon insects,
every bird has his special habitat
The swallows, several species in Ken
lucky, feed on the wing; the owls upon
the tips of trees and leaves--pinchins
off insects, often unseen by the natura
eye. The wren and sparrow are very
active feeders near and upon the ground
When the peas are sown 1 have observ
ed the sparrows following the lines ant
picking up the pea bugs as they emerge
from the ground. There are many birds
which peck the rose bush and grape
vines. All the woodpecker and sap
sucker tribe eat bugs and not sap.
For many years [ have kept a bo.
nailed to tree near my library window
| feed about quart of crumbs an,
hominy day. Last winter counte,
fourteen varieties eating them, anon,
others, the beautiful red-birds, which
though naturally shy, have becom'
almost as tame as the sparrows. I hat
rather sportsman would shoot dow
and carry off a pig than one of thes'
beautiful songsters
And now with this preface I come Il
the crows. For long years I hav'
ceased my early war upon the crows
They are eminently insectivorous. TIL,
crow, when the weather is very cold
will eat the eyes of weak, prostrat,
lambs, other birds eggs and young
take corn from the ground when it il
first sprouted, and follow and eat th'
soft, half-digested corn from fed cattle
in the fields. But for all this the,
should never be killed. In many land
the buzzard, as scavenger, is protecte,
by law. The crow is also a most activ
scavenger, but, as / said, is mostly in
sectivorous. I dissected young crow
in the nest, and never found a seed O
grain of corn. I found bugs, beetle
and, above all, caterpillars. This morn
ing, all over my bluegrass pasture, th
mercury standing at twenty eight de
| grees Fahrenheit, and a thin crust @
frozen earth and fine snow existing
there were thousands of crows feeding
They were eating grass and the eggs Q
grasshoppers.
In France the government pays
price for the gathering of these eggs
Here the crows do the work much NOR
effectively for nothing. I have in m
life seen whole meadows stripped G
blade and seed by grasshoppers. VIII
can say that the crows do not keep U
from famine9 The announcement b
your paper of the destruction of th
crows struck me with the same sensibi
ity as if one had boasted that he ha
dried up all the wells and all the spring
of the county Should I arouse th
State to pass efficient laws for the pre-
lection of crows and other birds,
will have done more for my countr
than all the politicians and warriors 6
| Justly made illustrious.