ARE SMALL BIRDS REALLY USEFUL

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13562, 25 October 1909, Page 2

ARE SMALL BIRDS REALLY USEFUL

I dare say a number of nsadew wiU at once exclaim: "What a ndicutoue question?" Is it really so? ttae anyone carefully considered what little good any of our small birds, the starling and hedge sparrow exceptod, are doing? It is claimed that they_ destroy \ number of insectsi andeat-the seeds of weeds, and now that the litwe owls have been introduced the number of email birds which the farmers consider have become an expensive pest, there has been some outcry against this attempt to cheapen the method of destruction. There> is a fear that with no small, birds there will be caterpillars in their place, and that with owls there will be no en»U birds, introduced or native. Lα the first place we have millions of BmaU birds and yet we have the caterpillars again, and unfortunately the small birds wiU not trouble about the caterpillars; in the second place, are farmere to bo heavily taxed in order to preserve the native birds which are disappearing fast enough through the destruction of native bush? Now what are our worst insect pests ( and do the small birds prevent any appreciable loss from them? The insect nests that on the whole do the most harm—that is to say, cause the most ixpense through direct loss or through the cost of methods of dealing with them—are the aphis blight on rape, turnips, and fruit trees; the diamondback moth on turnips; the grass grub, the codlin moth, scale blights, sheop tick. cheep lice, blow-flies and bot-flies. The starling, which is a true friend to the farmer and sheepowner, even if he is a doubtful friend of the orchardist, and is the only bird that does his good work without doing much harm, at the same time does not reduce any expenditure that the pests he specially preys upon renders necessary. Then take the question of seeds of weeds. Only a very small portion of these seeds, as a rule, germinate to such an extent as to be a nuisance on cultivated land, and it is very doubtful whether if there were no email birds the expense of dealing with weeds would be any greater than at present. Tako some of the worst weeds the farmer has to deal with —sorrel, fathen, docks, Cane weed, yarr (a bad pest in .Southland), ragwort, Californian thistle, and twitch (though rot really a weed, but at the same time an expensive pest), etc. Does any practical farmer really think that the small birds really reduce his losses and cost of dealing with these weeds? It would be interesting to know to what extent we suffer through the small birde spreading the seeds of weeds, and of such pests as blackberry, sweetbriar, and elder. Let anyone think over these matters, and eoe if it would bo such a great loss to the country if the little owls destroyed all the small birds (which, however, I do not think for a moment will be the case.)