The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-08-05
The Audubon Society
and It's Good Work.

the depredations of the biHbug. 1t is
perfectly safe to say that if the billbug
is plentiful the partridge is scarce.
That small gr~ayish-black bug with his
hard bill, like y steel instrument, that
bores into the cornstalk and deposits
its eggs to hatch into worms and eat
out the pith so that the stalk falls over
dead, is a perpetual menace TO the
corn crop of the State. The most eff
tectual enemy Of the billbug is the par
fridge. Tue partridge is also d great
destroyer of cutworms and grasshop.
pers, both destructive to crops.
One of the most valuable of the
small birds il the blue bird. This lit
tie fellow will eat his weight in cut
worms every day and the bird is worth
his own weight in gold to the garden
err. The blue bird has been sadly re-
duced In numbers, and vigorous meas.
ures for his protection should be instl-
tuted.
Such illustrations of the beneficent
work of birds could be multiplied an
hundredfcld. Very little more can be
done here than to hint at what is the
daily work of the Audubon Society,".
In this connection it should be said
that nothing is so discouraging to an
Audubon worker as to be referred to
hunters and fishermen for sympathiz.
ers. The best class of sportsmen, OF
course, sympathize with the Audubon
work and support it, but fish and
game are small fractions only of a
great undertaking. Every man in
the country has the same interest in
preserving the birds of his country, or
he should have. In fact he would
have, if he were an educated, thinking
man. To any rejecting person who
will take the trouble to investigate the
work that the Audubon Society is do
ing, it will seem childish to say hunt
ers and fishermen have any greater in
terest in preserving birds than has the
average farmer, professional man, ar
tisan, or other citizen. /
The Biological Survey has declared
that the annual damage done to the
crops of this country by insects is in
excess of 500, 900, 900 (Seven Hundred
Million Dollars! They said further
only last year that within fifteen years
past, one half of the birds of America
have disappeared. Here are cause and
effect, strangely and strongly contrast
ed. This is the estimate of exact and
careful scientists, and not the state
ment of irresponsible persons.
Solomon said in his proverbs LAS
the bird by wandering, the swallow
by flying, 30 the curse causeless shall
not come" Have we not learned that
the curse of devastated fields, OF with
cred and dying crops, of rivers drying
up with drought and swollen into
floods, of desolated forests, is not cause
less ?
Whereof to make this matter plain
and to the point: it behooves the cit
liens of the country, men and women,
to rise to the occasion and remedy the
great wrong done to the entire country
by the slaughter of its birds. The pol
itician will not do it the State has
not done it, and the citizen must.
The appeal can be made only to ed
ucated people-to people who think.
If the hunter and the fisherman have
one selfish reason for wishing TO pre-
serve game and fish. the citizen has a
thousand reasons for preserving the
birds of the country.
Abbeville has a proud and worthy
record. Such an appeal as the Audi
bon Society is making must find re-
Spouse among her citizens. For which
reason I am laying it before them.
James Henry Rice, Jr.,
Secretary.