File:Wild birds and their haunts (a book for students and sportsmen) (1922) (14727497106).jpg

Identifier: wildbirdstheirha00hall (find matches)
Title: Wild birds and their haunts (a book for students and sportsmen)
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Halliday, W
Subjects: Water birds Birds -- Great Britain
Publisher: London, Heath, Cranton limited
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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to the roses screening ourwindows, wrens to the knot holes in our weather boarding,robins to our lintels, swallows to our chimneys, andmartins to our eaves. There is no more patheticspectacle on the landscape than a birdless home ; as a ruleit is also a flowerless and loveless home. That the birds enrich us with their beauty and cheerus with their song is the smallest part of their service tous. Without their help in cleaning the air of mosquitoesand tiny insects we should be much more uncomfortablethan we are now. Without their work in eliminatingslug and aphis; borer and beetle from our gardens andorchards, half our flower and fruit crops would be lost.This applies not alone to the delicate and lovely songbirds. Quail and pheasant are busy in the fields, ploverand rail around the lake shores, hawk and owl at workin the forest. Our forefathers felt justified in shootinggallinae for food, and falcons, hawks, and owls on sight,in the belief that the loss of an occasional domestic fowl
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Foreword demanded protection against raptores. To-day we knowthat every so called game bird taken from its workof cleaning up insect pests and weed seeds in the fieldsis a distinct and heavy financial loss to the farmer.Every hawk or owl stopped in its natural work of elimi-nating beetles, grasshoppers, field mice, moles, and otherrodents, leaves thousands of these pests that it wouldhave killed to go on destroying fortunes in vegetablegardens and grain fields. The figures on the subjectof destruction of fruit, vegetables, and grain, by insectpests, are appalling. Conversely, carefully compiledstatistics concerning the insects and rodents consumedannually by the birds are so amazing that we are led tosee that not only are they our loving and entertainingfriends, but that they actually stand between us andfamine. So I would introduce the birds to every studentof bird life on an economic basis first; and afterwardthrow in for good measure the gift of their beauty andtheir song. I would

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