The Bird :: THE BIRD AS THE LABOURER OF MAN.

THE BIRD AS THE LABOURER OF MAN.

The "miserly agriculturist," is the accurate and forcible expression of Virgil. Miserly, and blind, in truth, for he proscribes the birds which destroy insects and protect his crops.

Not a grain will he spare to the bird which, during the winter rains, hunted up the future insect, sought out the nests of the larvÆ, examined them, turned over every leaf, and daily destroyed myriads of future caterpillars; but sacks of corn to the adult insects, and whole fields to the grasshoppers which the bird would have combated!

With his eyes fixed on the furrow, on the present moment, without sight or foresight; deaf to the grand harmony which no one ever interrupts with impunity, he has everywhere solicited or approved the laws which suppressed the much-needed assistant of his labour, the insect-destroying bird. And the insects have avenged the bird. It has become necessary to recall in all haste the banished. In the island of Bourbon, for example, a price was set on each martin's head; they disappeared, and then the grasshoppers took possession of the island, devouring, extinguishing, burning up with harsh acridity all that they did not devour. The same thing has occurred in North America with the starling, the protector of the maize. The sparrow even, which attacks the grain, but also defends it—the thieving, pilfering sparrow, loaded with so many insults, and stricken with so many maledictions—it has been seen that without him Hungary would perish; that he alone could wage the mighty war against the cockchafers and the myriad winged foes which reign in the low-lying lands: his banishment has been revoked, and the courageous militia hastily recalled which, if not strictly disciplined, are not the less the salvation of the country.

No long time ago, near Rouen, and in the valley of Monville, the crows had for a considerable period been proscribed. The cockchafers, accordingly, profited to such an extent—their larvÆ, multipled ad infinitum, pushed so far their subterranean works—that an entire meadow was pointed out to me as completely withered on the surface; every root of grass or herb was eaten up; and all the turf, easily detached, could be rolled back on itself just as one raises a carpet.

All toil, all appeals of man to nature, supposes the intelligence of the natural order. Such is the order, and such the law: Life has around it and within it its enemy—most frequently as its guest—the parasite which undermines and cankers it.

Inert and defenceless life, especially vegetable, deprived of locomotion, would succumb to it but for the stronger support of the indefatigable enemy of the parasite, the merciless pursuer, the winged conqueror of the monsters.

The war rages without under the Tropics, where they surge up on all sides. Within in our climates, where everything is hidden, more profound, and more mysterious.

In the exuberant fecundity of the Torrid Zone, the insects, those terrible destroyers of plant-life, carry off the superfluous. They are there a necessity. They ravage among the prodigious abundance of spontaneous plants, of lost seeds, of the fruits which Nature scatters over the wastes. Here, in the narrow field watered by the sweat of man, they garner in his place, devour his labour and its harvest; they attack even his life.

Do not say, "Winter is on my side; it will check the foe." Winter does but slay the enemies which would perish of themselves. It kills especially the ephemera, whose existence was already measured by that of the flower, or the leaf with which it was bound up. But, before dying, the prescient atom assures the safety of its posterity; it finds for it an asylum, conceals and carefully deposits its future, the germ of its reproduction. As eggs, as larvÆ, or in their own shapes, living, mature, armed, these invisible creatures sleep in the bosom of the earth, awaiting their opportunity. Is she immovable, this earth? In the meadows I see her undulate—the black miner, the mole, continues her labours. At a higher elevation, in the dry grounds, stretch the subterranean granaries, where the philosophical rat, on a good pile of corn, passes the season in patience.

All this life breaks forth at spring-time. From high, from low, on the right, on the left, these predatory tribes, Échelonned by legions which succeed one another and relieve one another each in its month, in its day—the immense, the irresistible conscription of nature—will march to the conquest of man's works. The division of labour is perfect. Each has his post marked out, and will make no mistake. Each will go straight to his tree or his plant. And such will be their tremendous numbers, that not a leaf but will have its legion.

What wilt thou do, poor man? How wilt thou multiply thyself? Hast thou wings to pursue them? Hast thou even eyes to see them? Thou mayest kill them at thy pleasure; their security is complete: kill, annihilate millions; they live by thousands of millions! Where thou triumphest by sword and fire, burning up the plant itself, thou hearest all around the light whirring of the great army of atoms, which gives no heed to thy victory, and destroys unseen.

Listen. I will give thee two counsels. Weigh them, and adopt the wiser.

The first remedy for this, if you resolve upon fighting your foe, is to poison everything. Steep your seeds in sulphate of copper; put your barley under the protection of verdigris. This the foe is unprepared for; it disconcerts him. If he touches it, he dies or sickens. You, also, it is true, are scarcely flourishing; your adventurous stratagem may help the plagues which devastate our era. Happy age! The benevolent labourer poisons at the outset; this copper-coloured corn, handed over to the baker, ferments with the sulphate; a simple and agreeable means of "raising" the light pÂte, to which, perhaps, people would object.

No; adopt a better course than this. Take your side. Before so many enemies it is no shame to fall back. Let things go, and fold your arms. Rest, and look on. Be like that brave man who, on the eve of Waterloo, wounded and prostrate, contrived to lift himself up and scan the horizon; but he saw there Blucher, and the great cloud of the black army. Then he fell back, exclaiming, "They are too many!"

And how much more right have you to say so! You are alone against the universal conspiracy of life. You also may exclaim, "They are too many!"

You insist. See here these fields so full of inspiring hope; see the humid pastures where I might please myself with watching the cattle lost among the thick herbage. Let us lead thither the herds!

They are expected. Without them what would become of those living clouds of insects which love nothing but blood? The blood of the ox is good; the blood of man is better. Enter; seat yourself in their midst; you will be well received, for you are their banquet. These darts, these horns, these pincers, will find an exquisite delicacy in your flesh; a sanguinary orgie will open on your body for the frantic dance of this famished host, which will not relax at least from want; you shall see more than one fall away, and die of the intoxicating fountain which he had opened with his dart. Wounded, bleeding, swollen with puffed-up sores, hope for no repose. Others will come, and again others, for ever, and without end. For if the climate is less severe than in the zones of the South, in revenge, the eternal rain—that ocean of soft warm water incessantly flooding our meadows—hatches in a hopeless fecundity those nascent and greedy lives, which are impatient to rise, to be born, and to finish their career by the destruction of superior existences.

I have seen, not in the marshes, but on the western heights, those pleasant verdurous hills, clothed with woods or meadows—I have seen the pluvial waters repose for lack of outlet; and then, when evaporated by the sun's rays, leave the earth covered with a rich and abundant animal production—slugs, snails, insects of a myriad species, all people of terrible appetite, born with sharp teeth, with formidable apparatus, and ingenious machines of destruction. Powerless against the irruption of an unexpected host which crawled, stirred, ascended, penetrated, had almost eaten up ourselves, we contended with them through the agency of some brave and voracious fowls, which never counted their enemies, and did not criticise, but swallowed them. These Breton and Vendean fowls, inspired with the genius of their country, made their campaign so much the more successfully, because each waged war in its own manner. The black, the gray, and the egg-layer (such were their military titles), marched together in close array, and recoiled not a step; the dreamer or philosopher preferred skirmishing by himself (chouanner), and accomplished much more work. A superb black cat, the companion of their solitude, studied daily the track of the field mouse and the lizard, hunted the wasp, devoured the Spanish fly, always at some distance in advance of the respectful hens.

One word more in reference to them, and one regret. Our business being finished, we prepared for our departure. But what would become of them? Given to a friend, they would assuredly be eaten. We deliberated long. Then, coming to a vigorous decision, according to the ancient creed of savage tribes, who believed that it was sweetest to die by the hands of those we love, and thought that by eating their heroes they themselves became heroic, we made of them, not without lamentation, a funereal banquet.

It is a truly grand spectacle to see descend—one might almost say from heaven—against this frightful swarming of the universal monster-birth which awakens in the spring, hissing, whirring, croaking, buzzing, in its huge hunger, the universal saviour, in a hundred forms and a hundred legions, differing in arms and character, but all endowed with wings, all sharing a seeming privilege of ubiquity.

To the universal presence of the insect, to its ubiquity of numbers, responds that of the bird, of his swiftness, of his wing. The great moment is that when the insect, developing itself through the heat, meets the bird face to face; the bird multiplied in numbers; the bird which, having no milk, must feed at this very moment a numerous family with her living prey. Every year the world would be endangered if the bird could suckle, if its aliment were the work of an individual, of a stomach. But see, the noisy, restless brood, by ten, twenty, or thirty little bills, cry out for their prey; and the exigency is so great, such the maternal ardour to respond to this demand, that the desperate tomtit, unable to satisfy its score of children with three hundred caterpillars a day, will even invade the nests of other birds and pick out the brains of their young.

From our windows, which opened on the Luxemburg, we observed every winter the commencement of this useful war of the bird against the insect. We saw it in December inaugurate the year's labour. The honest and respectable household of the thrush, which one might call the leaf-lifter (tourne-feuilles), did their work by couples; when the sunshine followed rain, they visited the pools, and lifted the leaves one by one, with skill and conscientiousness, allowing nothing to pass which had not been attentively examined.

Thus, in the gloomiest months, when the sleep of nature so closely resembles death, the bird continued for us the spectacle of life. Even among the snow, the thrush saluted us when we arose. During our grave winter walks we were always accompanied by the wren, with its golden crest, its short, quick song, its soft and flute-like recall. The more familiar sparrows appeared on our balconies; punctual to the hour, they knew that twice a-day their meal would be ready for them, without any peril to their freedom.

For the rest, the honest labourers, on the arrival of spring, scrupled to ask our aid. As soon as their young were able to fly, they joyously brought them to our windows, as if to thank and bless us.

LABOUR—THE WOODPECKER.

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