Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1917 — Importance of Bird Preservation [ARTICLE]

Importance of Bird Preservation

By MRS. ROBERT T. SCOTT

A legend of a New England village relates how the farmers, exasperated over the toll taken from fruit and grain, banded together loathe extermination of all birds. They shot, trapped and poisoned until every native bird was extinct. That season the grain crops were destroyed, I the fruit did nob mature and the trees stood brown and shriveled from the 1 destruction wrought by insects. But more appalling than all was the mute reproach-of the voiceless forest and the absence of the twinkling wings of these “children of the air.” The legend narrates how the birds were again trapped in adjacent localities, and, with great care and ceremony, brought to the desolated spot and released. « Such wholesale slaughter could not easily be carried on at this present day, but the extermination of many birds through indifference is threatened. One of the generally known results of unconcern is the fate of the passenger pigeon. As late as 1880 flocks of these birds contained millions, and not a single pigeon is in existence today. The stately snowy white egrets of Oregon and Florida were about to suffer the same doom when protective measures were organized. The decreased number of many other birds is troubling the bird lover, and should trouble every agriculturist. * . , Few people realize the enormous amount of insect and weed-seed food devoured by the birds. The scientist, examining the stomachs of different species at different seasons, reveals facts that are almost incredible. An estimate based on these examinations made in two localities in the West where meadow larks are numerous, places the amount of insect food consumed by the nestlings about three hundred tons daily. In one state, where the tree sparrows winter, eight hundred tons of weed seeds were thought to be their season s portion. These two examples can be multiplied many times, the tiniest hummingbird doing its §hare in the economic order of nature.