Читать книгу Gray Lady and the Birds: Stories of the Bird Year for Home and School - Mabel Osgood Wright - Страница 15

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What the Birds do for us

“Perhaps even those of you who love birds have never thought very much about their ways of life. You are so accustomed to seeing them fly about, and to hearing them sing, that you do not realize what a strange, unnatural, silent thing springtime would be if the birds should all suddenly disappear.

“Yes, indeed, the world would be sad and lonely without these beautiful winged voices. But something even more dreadful would happen should they leave us: the people of the world would be in danger of starving, because the birds would not be here to feed on the myriad worms and insects that eat the wheat and corn and fruits upon which we, together with other animals, depend for food.

“The insects gnawing at the roots of the pasture grasses would destroy both the summer grazing for the cattle and the hay for winter fodder; if worms destroyed the forests, there would be no trees for firewood, and also the lack of shade would make the sources of our rivers dry up and we should soon suffer for water.

“Girls and boys might never think of this, but the Wise Men who live in Washington, and form the association known as the Biological Survey, as well as those of the Departments of Agriculture in each state, thought of this long ago.

“They have worked hard and proved the truth of this whole matter, and now know exactly upon what each kind of bird feeds; and laws are everywhere being made to protect the useful birds from people who are either so stupid or so vicious that they think a bird is something to be shot or stoned, and that the robbing of nests of eggs is a clever thing to do.

“Any child who stops to think must realize one thing: As almost all birds live on animal food during the nesting season, and feed their young with it, and many kinds eat it all the year, it follows that the more birds we have the fewer bugs there will be.

“Also those birds who feed on seeds and wild fruits destroy in the winter season quantities of weed seeds that would spring up and choke the crops, while they sow the seeds of wild fruits and berries, because the pits in these seeds, being hard, are dropped undigested.

“ ‘But,’ says some one, ‘the Robins and Catbirds came in our garden and bit the ripe side of the strawberries and cherries that father was growing for market, and we had to shoot them to make them stay away.’

“This is all true: some birds will steal a few berries, but for this mischief they do good all the rest of the long season; so pray ask your father to put only powder, a ‘blank cartridge,’ as it is called, in the gun, that it may give the birds warning to keep off, but not kill them; and let him save all the bullets and shot for the Coward Crow, himself a nest robber, the Great Horned Owl, the Hen and Chicken Hawks, and the English Sparrow.

“In the short stories that I am going to read or tell you of the birds, I will try to speak of the chief food of each, so that you may put a good mark beside its name in your memory, and try to realize that these birds, beautiful as many are, still have a deeper claim upon you. I wish you to see that they, as well as you, are citizens of this great Republic and do their part for the public good, which, next to the care and love of home, should be the chief ambition of us all, men or women.

“The wise men know this and they have made laws to protect the birds and other animals from cruelty and destruction, just as they have made laws to protect all other citizens. Listen to what your state forbids you to do,—to the laws that if you break you must and should be punished:—