Article #76 - Birds

 It may be and is often asked, “what is the use of birds” Judging from the conduct of many men and most boys we would conclude they were of no use, save to gratify a worse than idle sport We are too apt to look upon them as things that exist without any immediate benefit to man being somewhat familiar with the science of Ornithology and most American birds I feel that the community sustain a great loss from the want of a more general knowledge upon this subject.

            There are many things, connected with the history of our most common birds, which exhibit in an astonishing degree the wisdom and goodness of the Divinity. Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy & Zoology are all abundantly stamped with the “foot-prints of their creator” but in the structure, song, and plumage of the feathered denizens of field & forest has he preeminently left traces of his care and loving kindness. Thus do we know his attributes & become wiser and better beings from a knowledge of the things which he has made

            There are many points of this subject to which your attention might be profitably drawn, the one to which I shall at present advert to is the benefit which the agriculturist immediately derives from one species alone. And one too which is generally persecuted upon the supposition of his destroying a few hills of Indian Corn in the spring, but I think I shall succeed in showing that this sinks into nothingness when compared with the benefit received. It is the Red Winged Starling or Blackbird, Sternus Predatorious which arises in Pennsylvania from the South late in March. Their general food at this season as well [as] during the early part of summer consists of grub worms caterpillars and various other larvae the silent but deadly enemies of vegetation and whose secret & insidious attacks are more to be dreaded by the husbandman than the combined forces of the whole feathered tribes together. For these vermin the Starling search with great vigilance in the ground, at the roots of plants, in orchards and meadows, as well [as] amongst buds, leaves, and blossoms, and from their known voracity – the multitudes of these insects

which they destroy must be immense. Let me illustrate by a short computation [Here the author estimates, based on his observations, that starlings kill over 200 million insects in 4 months.]

All this it may be said is mere supposition, but it is supposition founded upon known & acknowledged facts. I have never dissected any of these birds in spring without receiving the most striking and satisfactory proof of these facts.  [Similarly, the swallow flies so quickly that

the author calculates that in ten years a swallow flies more than 87 times the circumference of the globe. He urges more study of birds.]