Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1895-03-29
GODS CHORlSTERS.
THF FEATHERED SONGSTERS AND
THEIR Prosecutors.
:. oh why should the Spirit OF Nor.
tai Bc rrOud,'' hen "a Mani.
treatiOD.. nO People stop TO
THINK.

Onida, in the Niafteenth Ccnturl
expresses sentiments which must fin,
an echo within the heart OF every tru
disciple OF the Nazarine. Let us hop
that like seed sown upon good ground
it will germinate and produce goo,
fruit, resulting in mercy to all OF God
creatures.
stringent measures are taken, tn,
birds OF Europe will, in the next GER
tury, he as extinct as is now the dinor
mis-. The ornithophil societies oi
France and Switzerland have more
than once written to me that unless
birds be protected i'll Italy they must
perish all over Europe, since so great
variety OF races wing their way to
the south in winter, and there are
ruthlessly murdered Switzerland
Saws that millions of her birds (insec-
tivorous songsterS) leave her for Italy
in autumn, never in spring to return.
No representation of this fact pro.
duces any impression on Italians
they do not believe that birds aid
their crops and clean their vines.
They wish to eat them; they are inn
pervious to any other considerations,
and 80 they continue to destroy lovely
and useful little lives, butchered to lie
in rotting heaps in the market places
or be sold at two farthings a head.
In autumn numerous tribes OF north
ern nesting song birds come south
ward, and their piping and trilling is
heard for a week or two in the fields
and hedges, under the willows of wa.
tercourses and among the furze and
chestnut scrub of the hills. Then it
is silenced. Trap. or gun, or net, or
poison have done their work. The
huge low-spread nets called panatoie
capture hundreds in forenoon.
There is no distinction or discernment
in the wholesale murder. The decree
is, Let every winged thing die.
Along the little streamlets, by the
banks of rivers, among the reeds and
rushes, anywhere where there is wa.
ter, men wait at daybreak TO snare or
slay the birds as they come to drink
and again at sunset, when the birds,
large and small, fly down to slake
their thirst, the same brutal foes lie
hidden to destroy them. AS are the
dogs lives In the cities, so are the
birds lives in the country. They are
hunted from dawn to dark. Even
within the towns the birds are no
safer; the blackcap and merle, the
linnet and chaffinch, the bullfnch
and goldfnch, which would be numer-
GUS in Italian towns were they let
alone, are caught by nooses or shot
without pity.
The thistle seed so eagerly sought
and eaten by the goldfinch should
make that beautiful bird precious to
those who have neither sight for his
plumage nor ear for his song. The
grubs and Larvae of injurious insects
turned up by the bills Of blackbirds
and nightingales should render them
sacred to those to whom their melody
says nothing. All the tribes of finches
are invaluable as grub hunters and
aphis eaters on the grounds where
they feed and breed. Italian agricult-
urists bitterly bemoan the fact that
their fields are ravaged by insect
hordes of every kind, that their fruits
drop off unripe, and that their vege-
tables are eaten to the root by snails
and caterpillars, and through the root
by wireworms and grubs. There is,
indeed. a close time in most countries,
but it is too short TO be effective; it
begins too late to protect birds in
their amorous season, when they are
most easily approached and taken,
and ends too soon to save the later
young broods from being seized or
shot while scarcely fledged.
l have repeatedly seen during the
close time linnets. fnches, grosbeaks
and nightingales hawked wild in the
streets of Rome by boys who held
them at the end OF a string, and flung
the terrified little things into carriages
or shops, or on to peoples shoulders,
on the chance of sale.
Mosquitoes. flies, wssps, moths, cat
erpillars, large and small, and the red
ant, which swarms in houses and de-
YOURS all kinds of food with incredible
rapidity, all these are a hundredfold
more numerous than they were in by
gone years; while the great ash-colored
locust appears in millions, which
cover and desolate whole districts,
leaving no green blade or leaf alive.
Whose is the fault? Who let's the lar
vae-eating and the insect-killing birds
be murdered in the very season OF
their usefulness? Who lets the swal.
lows, who would rid the air OF winged
pests in their graceful circling flight
be shot down in scores as they flash in
the morning sun or skim the water a
eventime for bath and drink?
have known hundreds OF swallows ant
martins come to make their nests a
April brought them home, and l have
known these innocent and useful re
turning pilgrims destroyed almost en-
tirely before June was passed, two o
three at most being lett OF the happ.
bands which had come back g
joyously and trustingly to the roofs q
men. The penalty for staying swal
low or martin could not be placed to
high. All day long and until it