Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/707

Rh rarely all that is left to guard men against being fully estranged from Nature.

But in consideration of the fact that in the materialistic tendencies of our day to turn away from all purely idealistic points of view, and notwithstanding what has been said above, since the main argument for the protection of birds lies in their importance and indispensability for Nature's household and for human welfare, I will also take their actual usefulness into consideration. We dismiss those excessive exaggerations by which each and every bird is represented as necessary. They have done more harm than good to the cause by the sharp and sometimes angry contradictions they have provoked. To designate all birds according to their usefulness or the harm they do would be hopeless; for each bird, even the most useful, may under some circumstances do much harm; so that the useful or injurious character of single species may be exceedingly variable under different local conditions. I may be allowed to adduce a few examples of this.

The sparrow has been of late years one of the most noxious of all birds; and is capable, in fact, in districts under high cultivation, alighting in hosts on fields of ripening grain, or in orchards, of doing great harm. Nobody can, on the other hand, deny that it eats naked caterpillars, worms, and similar vermin; and whoever will can without difficulty satisfy himself that it eagerly catches grub-worms in the spring. The complete extirpation of the sparrow, which is.recklessly and improvidently demanded in many quarters to-day, would be a serious wrong and great folly, because it is in many places the single bird destructive to vermin, and the latter would without it increase much faster and become more predominant than hitherto. A similar view may be taken of the bull-finch, whose beauty every one enjoys wherever it shows itself; but it is one of the class which men would banish, for it has in many places developed great power for mischief. It eats the flower-buds from the fruit trees, especially from the pear trees, and thus does great harm. And it is fortunate that in many parts of Germany its young are stolen from the nests by hundreds, domesticated and trained to be singers, and have become an article of trade. Blackbirds and starlings have likewise come to be regarded as obnoxious by narrow-hearted gardeners who look at everything through the spectacles of their own interest. In other respects these birds are among the most useful we have. If we were to estimate the usefulness or objectionableness of all birds, giving heed to the prejudices of every one whose special interest they might in some way damage, we should have to put the ban upon nearly all, and have hardly a species exempt from sentence.

Instead of this, we prefer to apply the measures by which we