Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1912-07-25
What If There Were No Birdsp

be completed by the summer OF 1913.
What II There Were No BirdsP
Children should befriend the birds, says
E. H. ForbuSh in Our Dumb Animals, be-
cause it is "more blessed TO give than to
receive" They should be taught TO feed
the birds; and to plant trees, shrubs and
vines, which furnish food for birds, be-
cause such humane and kindly acts tend
to develop the child into more unselfish,
kind and useful man or woman. Chill
dren who begin by being kind and humane
to the lower animals rarely become GRIM
inals. Crime decreases wherever the
protection OF the weak and the helpless
is taught and practised.
Boys and girls should seek TO protect
and shelter birds, because it is best for
the welfare of the community and the
race to have an increased number OF those
birds that destroy the pests of the farm,
orchard and garden.
Children should be taught to attract
birds about the farm and home, for by so
doing they will secure small army of
helpers in field, orchard and garden
helpers that will destroy our insect foes,
and so save fruit, flower and leaf from
destruction.
Children may readily attract the birds
by hanging out uncleaned bones and
pieces of meat on the trees, and by scat
tering chaff and barn sweepings in the
yards. They will thus entice about the
farm and dooryard those species that feed
on the insect enemies of trees and those
that destroy the weed seeds in the garden,
and so get much help from the birds in
return for little help given them. This
is good business investment. This is
but an economic and selfish reason why
children should befriend the birds; never
theleSs, il is one well worth considering,
for without birds the world might become
either barren waste, unfit for human
habitation or sphere infested with recur-
rent plaques, iamines and pestilences.
Birds not only help us by eating the
super-abundance of the insects that infest
our trees, shrubbery, vegetables, grasses
and grains, but they also destroy large
numbers of other animals that if left to
increase unchecked might soon become
destructive pests or serious nuisanceS.
Birds kill and eat surplus field-mice,
shrews, squirrels, hares, skunkS. weasels,
frogs, toads, lizards, spiders and other
creatures. Were the birds destroyed,
these creatures as well as insects would
increase greatly in numbers and make
war upon each other. innorthern Europe,
where the hawks and owls have been
much reduced in numbers by farmers and
game keepers, great hordes OF fiefd-mice
have destroyed the grass on thousands OF
acres OF meadow and pasture land.
Professor Herrick tells us in Bird-Love
that in part of Italy where the people
have destroyed most of the birds former
ly nested there the land in now infested
with lizards. He has seen on tract OF
ground one lizard for each square foot.
These lizards feed mainly on insects, and
so when the birds had been destroyed
the lizards in measure took The place OF
the birds. But even in Italy only a part
of the birds have been killed, and many
migratory birds still pass through the
country in fall and spring, feeding on in
sects as they go.
Let us imagine what would probably
happen in our own country were the peo-
ple TO kill all the birds. Insects increase
so rapidly that were they unchecked by
birds we might expect a great pleague OF
caterpHlars, beetles, bugs and other in
furious insects. Undoubtedly the leaves
on the trees, The vegetables in the gardens
and the grain in the fields would then be
nearly all destroyed by insects, and soon-
er or later cattle, horses and other domes-
tic animals, as wellas we ourselves, would
be threatened by starvation.
The increase of injurious insects would
be foIIowedIby an irruption OF the insects
that feed upon them, and the air would
be filled with ichneumon flies and gnat-
like parasitic insects. Thegrouud would
be fairly carpeted with predaceous bee
ties, bugs and spiders. Every tree and
bush would swarm with them, and all
vegetation would be enmeshed in spiders
webs.
The pleague Of insects would also bring
on an increase of frogs, toads and bats, as
they feed largely upon insects; and, to
crown all, would come an army OF snakes,
which, taking the place OF the birds in q
measure, would feed upon all.
The struggle between the snakes and
the toads, frogs, mice, squirrels and other
small animals would probably result in a
victory for the snakes. The few people
that were able to survive famine, plague
and pestilence would then be reduced to
living on snakes, Iand would find the