Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1913-06-04
SHALL WE HAVE A
BIRDLESS WORLD?
Edward Howe Forbush. in Our Dumb Ani
mails


mails,
Children should befriend the birds,
because it is "more blessed to give than to
receive. They should be taught to feed
the birds, and to plant trees, shrubs and
vine, 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. Children
who begin by being kind and humane to
the lower animals rarely become crimi-
nails. Crime decreases wherever the pro-
| lection OF the weak and helpless is taught
and practised.
Boys and girls should seek to protect
and shelter birds, because ii is best for the
welfare of the community and the race 10
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 u1cleaned bones and
pieces of meat on the trees, and by scat
tering chat and barn-weepings in the
yard. 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 a good business Investment. This is
but an economic and selfish reason why
| children should befriend the birds; never
theless, 1t is one well worth considering,
for without birds the world might become
either a barren waste, unfit for human
hanitation, or a sphere invested with
recurrent plaques, famines and pesti-
lcnces.
| Birds not only help us by eating the
| superabundance of the insects that iniest
our trees, shrubbery, vegetables, grasses
and grains, but they also destroy large
numbers OF other animals that, IL left to
increase unchecked, might soon become
!
Birds kill and eat surplus field-mice,
shrews, squirrels, hares, skunks, weasles,
frogs, toads, lizards, spiders and other
creatures. Were the birds destroyed,
these creatures, as we'll as insects, would
increase greatly in numbers and make war
upon each other. In northern Europe.
W here the hawks and owls have been
! -, bar b., 70 nd
game keepers, great hordes OF field mice
have destroyed the grass on thousands OF
acres OF meadow and pasture-land.
Professor Herrick tells US in Bird-Lore
that in a part OF Italy where the people
have destroyed most of the birds that
tested with lizards. He has seen on q
| tract OF ground one lizard for each square
| foot. These lizards feed mainly on in
sects, and so when the birds had been de-
stroyed the lizards, in measure, took the
place OF the birds. But even in Italy
only part OF the birds have been killed,
and many migratory birds still pass
through the country in fall and spring,
feeding on insects as they go.
Let US imagine what would probably
| happen in our own country were the
people to kill all the birds. Insects in
| crease so rapidly that were they I'M
checked by birds we might expect a great
plague OF caterpiiiars, beetles, bugs and
other injurious 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
sooner or later cattle, horses and other
domestic animals, as well as we ourselves,
would be threatened by starvation.
| The increase of injurious insects would
be followed by an Eruption Of the insects
that feed upon them, and the air would be
| filled with ichneumon flies and gnat-like
| parasitic Insects. The ground would be
fairly carpeted with predaceous beetles,
! bugs and spiders. Every tree and bush
would swarm with them, and all vegeta-
ton would be enmeshed in spiders webs.
The plague of insects would siso