N.Z. BIRDS’ EGGS

Northern Advocate, 26 October 1935, Page 8

N.Z. BIRDS’ EGGS

The Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand is to be commended for the very fine work it is doing. Its latest effort is to produce a chart pf the eggs of all birds found in New Zealand, and to forward copies of it to county councils in order that the eggs of those birds which are of great economical value to man may not be included and taken with those of the few species which may. at some seasons do more harm than good. Many of the eggs collected and paid for belong to species which are entirely beneficial, as they feed exclusively on insects the whole year round. It has been authoritatively stated by scientists after long and careful study of the habits of birds, that man could not exist on this earth for a longer period than nine years but for the activities of birds, because harmful insects, propagating at the prodigious rate they do, would, within a few years, destroy all vegetation, and man, unable to subsist solely on fish, would perish. Nearly v all land birds, including the sparrow, feed their young entirely on insects, and a fledgling bird can consume something like three times its own weight daily. If, therefore, we visualise the many hundreds of thousands of fledglings reared annually in New Zealand, which may have to be fed on insects, 4 we can form some meagre idea of the mighty toll taken.