Winged Wardens: August 2013

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Winged Wardens Index to Posts

Saturday, August 17, 2013

In its April 29, 1835 edition the New England Farmer reprinted an article from the Boston Daily Advocate decrying the over-hunting of marsh birds. This had been a concern for many years; indeed, marsh hunting (except for landowners) had been prohibited between March 1 and September 1 in Massachusetts since 1821. Nevertheless, the more recent "wanton destruction" deserved further legislative consideration.

A petition for an act to prevent the wanton destruction of marsh birds was taken up in the House yesterday. It is a subject well deserving attention. The petition states that these birds, the plover, red-breast, and curlew etc (which afford such delightful sport to the gunner, on the great marshes of the Cape, in the month of August) come here from the South, in April or May, when poor and unfit for food. That the people near where the birds find their roosts, kindle fires on the marshes, towards which they fly and are knocked down and destroyed in immense quantities. One person alone, in one night, murdered 2400 of these birds, in this wanton manner. It is apparent that if this wicked slaughter is continued the whole species will become extinct.

The citizens of Barnstable and Plymouth counties are deeply interested in preventing this kind of bloody massacre. One of the greatest inducements for strangers to visit that healthful spot, the Cape, in summer, is the amusement of shooting on the marshes--a healthful exercise, which is alike captivating to as great a mind as Daniel Webster's or as little a one, as ordinary summer loungers carry with them when they travel.

This attraction is a source of profit as well as pleasure and we earnestly hope that the Legislature will pass the act desired. To kill a bird is a fair shot on the wing, and for purposes of food, is warranted on every principle which justifies the use of meats in any case; but to decoy whole flocks of them by holding out false lights, that at the same time may destroy the mariner, and then knock them on the head, is cold-blooded, wanton, savage--bird slaughter.

This reaction was clearly in the tradition of the "true sportsman," and it paralleled discussions about the over-hunting of rails in the Turf Register. There was nothing wrong with a little shooting; Cape Cod's tourism, in fact, depended on it. But hunters were making the sport unsustainable.

Given the levity shown towards bird-related legislation in the previous post about crows, it may appear doubtful that such legislation would pass, but in fact 1835 saw a new law in Massachusetts prohibiting the night shooting of plover, curlew, dough bird [eskimo curlew] , or chicken bird [ruddy turnstone] between April 20 to September 1 (a general close season ending July 1 would become law in 1849). The following year saw the official prohibition of the sale of marsh birds during the close season.

The killing of shore birds at levels justifying the "bird slaughter" description did not stop. The eskimo curlew, formerly abundant at passenger pigeon levels, was effectively extirpated in Massachusetts by the end of the century and is likely extinct today. Indeed, the eskimo curlew became a symbol of the folly of unrestrained market hunting, and along with the passenger pigeon, helped to spur anti-market game regulations. That the eskimo curlew was insectivorous, especially during its stops in Massachusetts, makes it a "useful bird" that Massachusetts ultimately failed to protect.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Crows on trial

On March 12, 1834, the New England Farmer reprinted an interesting article originally run in the Salem Register. While both papers treated the issue of crow bounty legislation as humor, the article offers a rare glimpse of actual discourse about bird-related issues in the Massachusetts legislature.

The Salem Register published the following sketch of a debate in the Legislature on the bill for allowing 25 cents for every full grown Crow, and 12 1/2 cents for every young crow, ("children half price,") which may be killed in the State.

The members took occasion to indulge in a little pleasantry on this subject.

While the debate ultimately took a humorous turn, there is no reason to think the initial remarks (printed below) were not genuine. Indeed the positions taken by speakers closely mirrored sentiments and arguments that we've seen before. The first speaker argued against the bill in favor of the crow.

Mr. [Micah] Ruggles, of Troy [Fall River], spoke in defense of the character of the Crow. They are the natural scavengers of our Farms--they destroy the enemies of our corn fields, and do much more good than harm. He was always glad to see them. He was himself a farmer and raised 300 bushels of corn a year. He always prevented any one from killing the crows and frequently scattered half a bushel of corn about to feed them. He should be as willing to pay for their services as for any of the laborers upon his farm. He moved to strike out the enacting clause of the bill.

The bill's formulators disagreed.

Mr. [Ethan A.] Greenwood, of Hubbardston, (Chairman of the Committee which reported the bill) defended its provisions, and spoke in a disrespectful manner of the character of the Crow. Every farmer, he said, knows they are great depredators, and some are injured to the amount of 30 to 40 dollars a year. He thought something should be done to encourage their destruction.

Then the "pleasantries" emerged, mixed with some amount of apparently genuine sentiment. For example, there was no need for the law because farmers could easily afford to defend their own corn:

Mr. [Justus] Forward, of Belchertown, thought there were other birds and animals as bad as crows and ought to be destroyed just as much. There was the Chewink and Chipmunk--they too visit our cornfields. But he would ask any liberal minded man if he would grudge a kernel of corn to a poor Chipmunk when he sees him sitting hour after hour, with tears in his eyes longing for something to eat? If any gentleman raises so much corn as to lose 40 dollars a year by the crows, he can afford to hire a man and find him powder and shot to protect it. If the crows are killed, twice the number would come to bury the dead.

An old farmer in the gallery said he at first thought this a small subject to legislate upon but he was now in favor of doing something against the crows. He has known them to pluck out the eyes of little lambs! Would gentlemen let an animal that would do such a deed go with impunity? As to Chipmunks, they could not fly and small children could set squat traps and catch 'em; there is no need of a bounty for them. Gentlemen must possess a very liberal spirit, as well as a great abundance, if they are willing to give corn to such a pernicious tribe as the crows.

A member moved a re-commitment, to add chipmunks, chewinks, caterpillars etc to the bill.

Mr. Forward never knew crows to pick out lambs' eyes, but he didn't doubt the word of the gentleman in the gallery, for he once travelled in his part of the country and upon his word he didn't believe there was corn enough raised there for the Crows to subsist upon!

Mr. Darling, of Marblehead, said he once knew a corn field destroyed by a swarm of Rats--he though they ought to be included in the bill, and that it should specify at what age they should be considered Young rats or Old rats!

Mr. Forward said--the bill didn't point out the size or weight which constitute a "full grown Crow."

An elderly member asked whether the bill was to apply to the city of Boston?
Mr. Greenwood replied that it would not--no Crow was ever seen in the city except a certain "Jim Crow" and he had no idea of shooting him!

Mr. Ellis said, there was a member of this House the last year by the name of Crow! He certainly would come under the denomination of a "full grown Crow," and he saw no provision in the bill which would protect him!

Fortunately for crows, the bill did not pass, signaling what was perhaps the beginning of the end of attempts to control crow depredations through bounties.

The House having been amused for an hour by this crow shooting project, and the proposition having been sufficiently ridiculed, the question was taken on striking out the enacting clause of the bill, and carried in the affirmative by a very large majority.

In the same issue of the New England Farmer there were two other crow-related articles. The first, mirroring the pro-crow position expressed by Micah Ruggles, interpreted an item from the London news:

27,000 crows were destroyed this season at Dupplin by the demolition of between 11000 and 12000 nests, by contract for 25 pounds sterling....In opposition to this spirit of persecution it is said that nine tenths of their food consists of worms, insects, and their larvae; and by every one who knows how destructive to vegetation are the larvae of the tribes of insects and worms, some slight idea, may be formed of the devastation which rooks are the means of preventing.

This information above was credited to Loudon's Gardener's Magazine; it combined a number of separate items from the October 1833 issue.

The second crow-related article reveals that despite the overall positive thrust of the New England Farmer with respect to the "feathered tribe," there was still room in the paper for methods of bird destruction. Titled, "To kill rats or crows," it repeated a novel suggestion from the Genesee Farmer that nux vomica (strychine) applied to corn would make a better pesticide than corn soaked with arsenic. The writer described his experience using the method. Despite using insufficient amounts of poison, he was still able to turn the situation to his advantage:

...early the next morning after sowing it, I found a crow on the ground, stupid; but on putting him in a cage he revived, and I put him in the field, and confined him to a board by tying his legs on the under side, after boring two holes to put his feet through; and immediately the air was black with crows but no one ventured to disturb the corn...

While this might strike the modern reader as a novel form of cruelty, in fact, the use of individual trapped crows to ward off flocks was a fairly common idea. It is clear though, that even within pages of the New England Farmer, there was no consensus about the usefulness of crows.

[UPDATE. The crow trial was apparently a literary genre. The Farmer's Register in October 1836 published a remarkable account of a "Debate on the Crow Bill, in the Senate of Virginia, February 8, 1826." In verse form.]

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Silent Spring 1834 style

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example--where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed.... It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.
--"A Fable for Tomorrow," Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962.

It is a melancholy fact in this vicinity, and probably elsewhere, at least as far as the extent of the New England States, that our songsters, who give the most delightful of all melody, are so extinct, that in our usual walks of business or of pleasure it is rare to hear or see a solitary one....
--Portsmouth Journal, June 11, 1834

In the 1830s a "silent spring" was not a fable but a widely perceived reality. This is not to suggest that Carson was somehow influenced by the scene a hundred and thirty years earlier. Indeed, the relationship between birds and insects had become inverted. No longer the destroyers of insects, birds were dying in the name of insecticides. Nevertheless, even in the 1830s, there were writers who elevated birdsong above the utilitarian value of insect control. A "silent spring" alone represented a diminished world.

A representative celebration of springtime birdsong can be found in an article originally run in Plymouth's Old Colony Memorial and reprinted in the New England Farmer on May 28 1834.

The return of the birds is in the most undeviating order. Those, who left us last, who seemed unwilling to depart from their accustomed haunts and to turn from those whose friendships they were wont to experience, are the first to greet us with their vernal melody. Thus as soon as the spring opens, we hear the bluebird chirping upon our house-tops, and the song of the robin awakens us from our morning drowsiness. the marsh-lark, too, is seen skimming through the air, and the black-bird returns to his favorite meadow lands.
The air is soon repeopled with its multitude of songsters, and the fields and woodlands resound with swelling notes of music. What a signal example to man also to join in the Anthem, and to make the song of praise universal! Man is the only reasoning creature on earth; yet seems to be the only doubting and thankless creature among the vast millions the Creator as formed.

This article then turned briefly to the insectivorous value of the birds and the sin of wantonly killing them, ending on a pessimistic but realistic note. Unlike other authors (including Carson), the writer didn't have much faith in the power of speech to put and end to the sinning:

But on the whole, what signifies preaching or talking, or writing on these subjects? Sad experience may, after a course of years, bring people to an acknowledgement that these little animals were made for some other purpose than to be sported with and murdered by lazy men and worthless boys; that they are of essential benefit to the agriculturalist, and it is to his interest as a cultivator of the soil, and to his credit as a man of true feeling, that they be preserved.

A world without birdsong would be a world made by humans who had rejected the blessings of their Creator, despite prophetic warnings.

An article from the Portsmouth Journal, republished in the June 11, 1834 issue of the New England Farmer, suggested that the world without birdsong was quickly approaching, the result of human evil:

It has been the ravenous practice of man to destroy all those beautiful creatures--and the more beautiful, the more furious he is to destroy them, and that too without the least gain.
Now can we be candid enough to consider the evil consequences of this practice, as well as the great benefits to be derived in forbearance of such a practice? It is my present intention to set forth some of the evils resulting from such brutal and inhuman practices, and to endeavor to bring to view some of the benefits unavoidably resulting from their discontinuance.

In New England, songbirds were already missing:

It is a melancholy fact in this vicinity, and probably elsewhere, at least as far as the extent of the New England States, that our songsters, who give the most delightful of all melody, are so extinct, that in our usual walks of business or of pleasure it is rare to hear or see a solitary one, especially one of those admired singers the mavis or mock bird that is so distinguished above others of the bird tribe,--especially to see her so bold as formerly, rise to the top of a high tree, determined that every note should be distinctly heard, and there for fifteen minutes in succession, without the least intermission never repeat a single note; as soon as her song is ended, she is sure to remove to another of the loftiest tops and pitch another song in as clear and deliberate a manner as say of the human tribe possibly can--Now the poor songster, if she presumes to show her head, or sing us one of her old hundreds, even in a bush, she is immediately put to death.

The singing of birds in general is above all music particularly at the closing of our long frozen winters, after being shut up and excluded from most of the enlivening exhibitions of nature. The sight of a variety, and plenty of those birds with their warbling voices around us in our walks, and in our business, would change the present melancholy scene very much. It is surprising that we notice the very great difference within a few years; I could once see a tolerable number of different species in my orchard, and about my farm; but men as they call themselves, and boys, would flock around my dwellings, and in dry seasons, when there was much danger of fire being kindled from their guns. Every bird of every description was shot on its nest, or off, no matter, if a bunch of birds could be obtained to carry home for a show. I am not troubled with these gunners now; there are no birds on my farm save barn swallows, and a pair of Pewees, who are sure to come home every season, and breed in an out-building undisturbed.--We endeavor to protect them from guns and stones. They are as tame as we wish them; and they take off a few of the insects that infest our eyes and ears.

In addition to causing a plague of insects, the loss of songbirds would make the world a more dreary place.

Besides the privation names of the sight and music of those birds, we are sensible of a great increase of insects that infest our fruit trees, and that prey upon our grain and corn fields. We may positively assert, that if birds were increased a thousand to one, hopping over our grounds in search for their food, that there would be a great diminution of those insects amounting to nearly total extinction. There are many that feed on the insects on fruit trees, which if undisturbed, from a common course of nature, would free them from these pests which ruin the fruit. The different species of Woodpeckers used to be plenty, which are now almost extinct, from their exposed state, in searching out fruit orchards. The Cuckoo is fine but rare bird; she exposes herself from singing her very melodious songs; also from the circumstance of her particular manner of living, which I believe is wholly on caterpillars. I have seen them light at a new nest and clear it completely.

There are many species of birds which I have not mentioned as to their beauty and usefulness, and some few that are mischievous. My design has been to show that we once were delighted with, and benefited by those birds, and that we are now living in this dreary land, without their company, and without their great benefit.

Unlike the first article, the writer did believe that something could be done.

And now I will show that if we choose, we can soon enjoy their company again.

The remedy is practicable, it is only to legislate in their favor. To make the thing more perfect, every State should go hand in hand. A heavy fine should be laid against those who destroy any birds, except the most mischievous.

The call for uniform national songbird protection was truly before its time (even statewide songbird protection wouldn't happen for another twenty years); this would be a chief project of the National Association of Audubon Societies many years later.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

On Birds and their Misfortunes

A classic example of the developing economic-ornithological project is an article published in the (June 9, 1833) New England Farmer, originally run in the Boston Patriot. It was titled, "On Birds and Their Misfortunes," and was highly critical of the 1818 Massachusetts "Useful Bird Act." In short, the Act had encouraged the persecution of undeserving birds; a truly scientific ornithology could set things straight. [Note, this enterprise was very much in the spirit of Alexander Wilson].

We have already intimated our opinion, that the labors of the scientific ornithologist are of far more practical utility than the casual observer might suppose; and that, even in the business of legislation, a regard to his researches might prevent many errors, which may much affect public welfare. The legislation on the subject of birds has been marked by some essential errors, which have led to real evil. By the law of 1817, woodcocks, snipes, larks, and robins, were protected at certain seasons of the year, whilst war to the knife was declared against crows, blackbirds, owls, blue jays, and hawks; these last were treated as a sort of pirates, subject to suspension at the yard arm with the least possible ceremony. It so happens that the character of these very birds has been singularly mistaken; for while the ordinance of legislation has been thus systematically leveled at them, they, on a principle which men would do extremely well to imitate, have been returning good for evil; they have been diligently engaged in extripating all sorts of vermin, while never were the vilest vermin half so ill treated by the human race.

The author went one by one down the list of persecuted birds, highlighting the qualities that balanced any perceived mischief. Most of these don't require comment, so I will simply present the list, with the name of the bird in bold face.

The crow for example, who is generally regarded as a most suspicious character, has had great injustice done him; in the spring when the ground is moist, he lives a state of the most triumphant luxury on grubs; he eats the young corn, it is true, but it is a necessary of life to which he never resorts, except when his supply of animal food is shortened. After the corn is tolerably grown, he has nothing more to do with it; and in any stage he destroys at least five hundred pernicious grubs and insects, for every blade of corn which he pillages from man. In the Southern States he is regularly permitted to accompany the ploughman, and collects the grubs from the newly opened furrow; his life is thus secured by the safest of all tenures--that of the interest of man in permitting him to live.

There is scarcely a farm in England without its rookery; the humid atmosphere multiplies every species of insect, and those birds reward man for his forbearance by ridding him of legions of his foes. By a policy like that which dictated the revocation of the edict of Nantes, they have occasionally been exposed to the mischievous propensities of unruly boys, who, as far as utility is concerned, are not to be compared to crows; but the error of this step soon became obvious, and they are now received with a universal welcome.

The hawk enjoys a doubtful reputation in the hen-roost; he sometimes destroys the chickens, but with the consistency of man, does not like to see his infirmities copied by another; and by way of compensation demolishes the fox, which eats twenty chickens, where he eats but one; so that it is hardly the part of wisdom to set a price upon his head, while the fox, a hardened knave, is not honored with a penal statute.

How the owl came to be included in this black list, it is difficult to conjecture; he is a grave, reflecting bird, who has nothing to do with man except to benefit him by eating weasels, foxes, racoons, rats and mice, a sin for which most housekeepers will readily forgive him. In some parts of Europe, he is kept in families, like the cat, whom he equals in patience, and surpasses in alertness.

Another of these birds, the blackbird, is the avowed enemy of grubs, like the crow; in the middle States, the farmer knows the value of his company to pluck them from the furrow; and while other less painstaking birds collect the vermin from the surface, his investigations are more profound, and he digs to the depth of several inches in order to discover them. When the insects are no longer to be found, he eats the corn as well as he may, but even then asks but a moderate compensation for his former services; five hundred blackbirds do less injury to the corn than a single squirrel.

The last upon the catalogue of persecuted birds is the blue jay. Whoever watches him in the garden, will see him descend incessantly from the branches, pouncing every time up on the grub, his enemy and ours.

We have already seen that the act to which we have referred protects some birds at certain seasons of the year; among others, the robin, who lives on insects and worms, and has no taste for vegetable diet, and the lark, who is extremely useful in his way. The only wonder is that it should have been thought expedient to allow them to be shot, in any season.

On the other hand, some destructive birds didn't deserve the protection they'd been granted.

The quail, another of the privileged class, has no title to be named in the company with the others; in the planting time he makes more havoc than a regiment of crows, without atoning for his misdeeds by demolishing a single grub. Nor is the partridge a much more scrupulous respecter of the rights of property; though, as he lives in comparative retirement, he succeeds in preserving a better name for honesty.

[Later studies would demonstrate that bobwhite were in fact valuable weed seed eaters and young ruffed grouse, at least, were entirely insectivorous.] In general, songbirds, even bobolinks, deserved more credit than they commonly received.

There are some of our most familiar birds, of which a word may here be said. Every body has seen the little goldfinch on the thistle by the way-side, and wondered, perhaps, that his taste should lead him to so thorny a luxury; but he is all this while engaged in devouring the seeds, which but for him would over-run the grounds of every farmer.

Even the bob-o-link, a most conceited coxcomb, who steals with all imaginable grace, destroys millions of the insects which annoy the farmer most. All the little birds, in fact, which are seen about the blossoms of the trees, are doing us the same service on their own way.

The author reserved the final word for the woodpecker, with a real-life tale supporting the folly of treating certain birds as criminals deserving destruction:

Perhaps there is no bird which is considered more decidedly wanting in principle than the woodpecker; and certainly, so fare as man is concerned, there is none more conscientious. So long as a dead tree can be found for her nest, he will not trouble himself to bore into a living one; whatever wounds he makes upon the living, are considered by foreign gardeners as an advantage to the tree. The sound tree is not the object--he is in pursuit of insects and their larvae. In South Carolina and Georgia, forests to a vast extent have been destroyed by an insect, which would seem as capable of lifting a tree, as of destroying it. The people were alarmed by the visitation, and sagaciously laid the mischief at the door of the woodpecker, until they found that they had confounded the bailiff with the thief.

The time for true economic ornithology had arrived.

The injury arising from the loss of a single crop is hardly to be estimated. The experience which is taught us by our own misfortune, is very dearly bought; and we think that if we can derive it from others--if, for example, we can learn from the ornithologists the means of preventing such injury, as in many instances we may, the dictates of economy combine with those of taste, and warn us not to neglect the result of his researches.

This article ultimately found a permanent place in Thomas Green Fessenden's The Complete Farmer and Rural Economist.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

"Ought we to kill the birds that eat our fruit?"

The question of birds and cherries, as we have seen, was a crucial one for horticulturalists. Should farmers (following Addison) pay for birdsong with cherries or defend their property by destroying pilferers? One writer in Luther Tucker's Genesee Farmer (September 8, 1832) sought to explore this issue by means of an imagined dialogue (the fifth in a series of "Conversations on Horticulture"), between a person putatively representing a position guided by sentiment and poetry and another (the preferred position) representing the tough rationality of an economist. The series of conversations was credited to "X." (We will see another "X" in the near future with a similar point of view).

The discussants began with the basic question, which was quickly broadened by discussant farmer "B."

E. Ought we to kill the birds that eat our fruit?

B. If the right to do so is questioned I would ask if we ought to kill the crows that destroy our corn? or the rats that infest our granaries?

E. O, no farmer has any doubts on that score. Self-preservation is the first law of nature; but some doubt the propriety of killing birds that only come to eat our cherries or our raspberries.

B. Some persons get their bread by raising grain and others by selling cherries and raspberries. Now if self-preservation is the law, it will justify the destruction of the grosbeak for eating cherries as much as it will justify the destruction of the rat or of the crow for eating grain; and the application of the law is just the same, whether we raise the fruit for our own use or whether we raise it for others' use.

Note the invocation of "self-preservation" as an over-riding principle, as well as the (false) consensus concerning the propriety of shooting crows.

E. But do you think it right to kill the innocent birds that come round to sing for us, merely because they take a little fruit?

B. If they were innocent of taking my fruit--or if they only took a little fruit when I had it in abundance and which I could spare without inconvenience, I would think it best not to kill them. Birds that eat our fruit, however, are of two classes--those that feast on our labors without doing anything in return--as the grosbeak and the cedar bird; and those that destroy many noxious insects and take their pay in fruit--as the robins and the red-headed woodpecker. We are the judges whether they take too much or not. We are to decide whether we can afford to employ them on such terms--Yet I would grant favors to the robins which I would withhold from my enemies, the cedar birds

E. Birds that only come to that "common feast for all that lives," as [the Scottish poet James] Thomson calls it, ought not to be considered as enemies.

B. I will not contend about a word; their case differs not from that of the crow, or of the rat, if the property destroyed is of equal value. None of them ever visit us but for plunder; and those who take that view of this subject, appear not to discriminate between the fruits which grow wild and fruits of the garden which requires labor and expense, which are not--and which ought not to be--"common." Our right to the fruit which we cause to grow is as full, and as exclusive, as our right to the corn which we cause to grow; and we have as much right to defend the one as the other, from depredators of every description.

"B" was not a wanton bird killer. He used his judgement when deciding which birds should be destroyed, abstracting the problem and weighing cost versus benefit. In a footnote, the writer acknowledged that the cedar waxwing might eat insects in certain contexts but his own stomach examination studies had shown no insect matter. In other words, he was open-minded but reliant on empirical evidence.

E. Am I to understand, then, that you would spare the robins on the same cherry tree from which you would shoot the cedar birds?

B. I have done so; and would do so as long as I had fruit to spare; but if the numbers were disproportionately great to my quantity of fruit, and I could not spare it, I would not hesitate to lessen their numbers.

E. That is, you would kill them. O that would be barbarous.

B. I would only justify myself by the necessity of the case. It would not be more barbarous, however, than to kill chickens; and one chicken for destroying insects, is worth half a dozen robins.

E. In a garden that might be true, because you confine the chickens exclusively to that place--while the robin feeds in the fields and the woods, and does so little in any one place that his labor is scarcely perceived. Still you ought not to forget his services.

B. No, I would not forget his services; neither can I forget my own when I grow fruit which he plunders. If he does me more good than harm, I ought to save him. I am fond of robins--that is, I like to have a few to sing for me, just as I should like to have a few Canary birds; and I would agree to a moderate expenditure on both; but in all cases, as soon as they become too burdensome I would lessen their numbers.

Indeed, "B" was not opposed to the Addison idea of paying a few cherries for a song (equating robins with pet canaries) but would change his cost when cost exceeded benefit. Meanwhile, prejudice and sentiment (not to mention species confusion) guided his opponent:

E. I can't agree with you. I hold them "sacred to the household gods," as Thomson says, and would sooner give up my fruit than injure them--- [In a footnote the writer suggested that Babes in the Woods had transferred the positive sentiment towards the European robin to the American species]

B. And give up the chickens which are six times as serviceable to be cooked. I have as much right to kill a robin as I have to kill as chicken. I have as much right to kill a robin that injures me to the full amount of his services as I have to kill a partridge which never served nor annoyed me, and which every man who carries a gun is eager to shoot. If the robin is saved while the partridge is killed it shows that prejudice affords a better protection than innocence.

Even poets, such as William Cowper, saw the big picture here--that utility to humans defined the value of birds and animals.

E. You think too much of your fruit.

B. I estimate it no higher than the farmer estimates his grain, and none questions his right to defend his crops. A proper regard to the works of our Great Creator, however, will cause us to spare the life of every animal whose death is not necessary for our comforts. The pious Cowper would not number among his friends

"the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm"
yet he said in regard to inferior animals

"man's claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs,"
adding with reference to their destruction,

"A necessary act incurs no blame."

Christian mercy only extended to the edge of human comfort. [see Sarah Trimmer]. Those birds that displayed no costs, only benefits, deserved full protection:

E. You have surprised me: I did not suspect you would shoot the birds that we all love so much to have singing in our gardens and orchards.

B. That is a mistake--in part. We have three classes of birds; and to one class no person is more friendly than myself. I protect them as far as it is in my power--have built barriers of sweet briars to keep off the cats from their nests--and would no sooner shoot one than I would shoot a young chicken.

E. You have not named the class.

B. True. It contains the birds that never plunder us--such as the swallow, the blue bird, and our whole tribe of sparrows. They are not neutrals, merely abstaining from mischief; they are our best friends, by feeding on our enemies.

E. You mean noxious insects.

B. I do. And the man who would destroy one of these birds, for sport, or to show his skill as a marksman, must be destitute of some important moral principles; and I should be apprehensive of his committing other crimes when he could do so with impunity.

The swallow (beneficial) and the robin (mixed) could be sorted into different classes, very much an assumption of economic ornithology.

E. It seems to me that you make too much difference in the treatment of the swallow and the robin.

B. Not more than civilized nations have generally made between the peaceable citizen and him who takes his neighbor's property without leave. I should be satisfied to banish the robins when they become too troublesome; and would only resort to the gun because it is the only practicable method by which we can reduce them

E. With your partiality for birds, why do you argue so strenuously in favor of destroying them

B. I only argue that cultivators may use their right reason. I have mentioned the robin in particular because it is a favorite. I have not killed one in twenty years because they have not visited me as they have some of my neighbors, in destructive flocks. Yet I would not submit to have all my small fruits from the cherry to the grapes in the garden destroyed by robins--My neighbors ought to be guided by a similar determination; and when birds of any kind become too numerous and ravenous, they ought to assist in lessening their numbers.

Note the re-framing of "destruction" to "reduction." The rational farmer thought in quantitative terms. Not unlike the bee-keeper, Butler, who was concerned that sentiment (via "poets") could cause farmers to act in ways not in their best interest, farmer B, while well-disposed to songbirds in general, wanted to reserve the right to destroy "pests" (defined as cost exceeding benefit). The general need to protect songbirds could be taken for granted. Farmer B was concerned that this consensus had swung too far in the opposite direction.

The call to "lessen the numbers" of cedar waxwings was repeated a couple of years later in an 1834 letter to the Genessee Farmer:

Although many of our cherries were destroyed by the snow storm, we should still have had a comfortable supply, had it not been for the voracious Cedar birds. I find no way to deal with them so good as with small shot. This we have done to some considerable extent, and have thinned their ranks for the time being; but so numerous have they become in this country, and so scarce is the fruit this season that they will not allow a cherry to ripen; and unless carefully watched, they devour all the best of the strawberries. They have also begun already to eat the scarcely colored berries of the Tartarian Honeysuckle.

If all those who have cherry trees would do their part and kill their proper share of these marauders, the task would not fall so heavy on others who mean to defend their property. I am satisfied that were we to let the Cedar birds come and go unmolested, we should never see a ripe cherry; but many people, strange as it may seem, are not used to ripe cherries--eating them in a half-matured state, which gives them a better chance to compete with these mass devourers. We have no fruit however, that is more unwholesome than the cherry when eaten in that state; and certainly in flavor it is miserably deficient.

Note the call for all cherry tree owners to "do their part." No bird, by the way, was exempt from the cost-benefits analysis. Even the Baltimore oriole could be intolerable:

The Baltimore Oriole or Hanging bird is also voracious, but very different in its character. So far in the season, we have not had much cause for complaint; but when the raspberries begin to ripen, we shall hear from him. When on a plundering exhibition, his note is very sharp and shrill. On pears and apricots, which will not fatten him this year, he is more destructive than the Cedar bird. He is too bad to be tolerated, though a fine bird in some other respects.

Note the detail that the oriole's call was "sharp and shrill" when "plundering." Sentiment was still hard to extract from hard economic analysis.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Bird shooting and the True Sportsman

We hold it to be an axiom, that no true sportsman will demean himself by shooting small birds of any kind at this season of the year, and there are but few who will at any time level their guns at robins or any of the smaller birds. --Worcester Aegis, reprinted in New England Farmer, April 27, 1831.

According to Michael Bellesiles, in his 2000 book Arming America, hunting in the United States, unlike Great Britain, was considered disreputable for the first half century or so of its history. By 1830, however, the ideal of the "true sportsman" had begun to gain some traction in the United States, assisted by none other than John S. Skinner and his new periodical, The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine. One might expect Skinner's readership to have been at odds with bird protection advocates, and there were, at the beginning, some gripes expressed, but generally speaking the "true sportsman" ideal was highly complementary to agricultural bird protection; correspondents showed concern for such topics as sustainable bag limits and reasonable (and enforceable) close seasons. At the same time, a glimpse at prevailing attitudes can reveal why the more sentimental arguments against the shooting of songbirds fell on deaf ears.

The best example of the resentment of hunters felt over their perceived disrespect can be found in a letter to the Turf Register published in the February 1830 issue.

[Several years back] there were but few sportsmen here, and what few there were, were solicitous not to be known as such, and were sportsmen as it "were," by "stealth;" fearing it should it be known that they took a day's recreation in the "field," (where their minds would be unbent from serious thought; and human life cannot proceed to advantage without some measure of relaxation) it would injure their credit with our monied institutions....There were also at that period, among us, some self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees, who looked upon all persons who indulged in this manly and rational recreation, as but idlers or drones in the hive of society...

Moreover, the policy of closing farmland to hunters violated basic natural principles. Note the way the writer (and editor) positioned no trespassing notices as undemocratic.

As to our landed gentlemen, [the editor notes: "sometimes upstart arrogant Englishmen"] putting up "finger boards" and advertisements warning sportsmen not to trespass! On what, Mr Editor? On their old fields that have been thrown out of cultivation for more than twenty years--that I attribute to their ignorance of natural law, a principle of which is, "that nothing should be made exclusive property, which can conveniently be enjoyed in common." Now, I think, birds, with their fine expanded wings, and their powers of volition and locomotion can conveniently be enjoyed in common, and so nature intended. Our landed gentlemen will be candid enough to acknowledge that they are not afraid we will kill their birds, which their ignorance of natural law induces them to consider as much their personal property as their cows and horses, whereas they are the common property of all--exclusively in their wild state, belonging to no one, notwithstanding whose land they may happen to be on. It is true they may sue us for trespassing on their land, but not for shooting birds; and what damage or reparation could a jury award to the farmer?

By and large, however, criticism was reserved for fellow hunters who did not live up to the standard of the true sportsman. One sign of being a sportsman, for example, was having an acute sense of appropriate open seasons that went beyond what was legally allowable. See, for example, this comment about woodcocks published on February 1830.

In July they are considered sufficiently grown for the sportsman, but it is not uncommon in that month to find many too young to be without the care of the mother, which is always indicated by the action of the old bird when flushed, called hovering. The true sportsman, in such cases, withholds his fire and spares the imploring mother and her young...

(Note that this letter also refuted the myth of the unsentimental sportsman)

I have frequently felt something like remorse, when, on picking up a wounded [woodcock], I have met the forgiving expression of its full and bright, yet soft hazel orb. How many of the beauties who dazzle and enslave us would be proud of such an eye.

One recurring topic in the early years of the Turf Register was the question of appropriate seasons for rail shooting. Here's a particularly vitriolic sample from June 1830:

Rail shooting ought not to commence before the middle of September, and for one excellent reason, viz: they are entirely useless for any known purpose, being so wretchedly bare, that none but a connoisseur in bone eating would think of troubling the cook with their miserable carcasses. Notwithstanding this fact, I am sorry to say, that some gentlemen of our city are terribly guilty of destroying these poor little birds by wholesale long before that period, for no other purpose that I can imagine, unless to have a convenient opportunity to examine minutely their anatomical structure, or to boast of the quantity of crime they may have committed.

Another sign of being a true sportsman was shooting for a purpose (food) rather than points in a competition. See this July 1830 letter about the destruction of grouse that denied the label "sportsman" to those who violated the principle:

[Grouse are] almost annihilated in consequence of those who call themselves sportsmen, commencing the murder of the young birds about the first of August...Their object is to boast of having killed so many birds. They conceal their being young birds that could not fly, or get out of the way, and, as your correspondent justly terms it, "might have been killed with the ramrod."

The same writer (who named himself "ranger") made the case that sportsmen themselves should and could effectively enforce closed season laws:

Some honourable sportsmen, who I am acquainted with, hearing of [poachers] having gone down, applied for warrants for them, and, with a peace officer, waited for their return. About one or two o'clock in the morning the sportsmen drove up to the tavern in high glee. After the common salutations the officer served warrants upon them for the penalty of killing game out of season. They were much surprised indeed that sportsmen should be thus treated and at first were disposed to be obstreperous but on more mature reflection and finding the Jerseymen resolute and determined, they became composed and a compromise took place, they agreeing to pay twenty dollars, with a promise never to be guilty of the like offence again...

Make no mistake. The goals of bird protection were not in perfect synchrony with those of sportsmen. Love of the beautiful singing of songbirds, for example, was not a sufficient reason not to kill them. One could enjoy both their song and their flesh. This is shown most dramatically by the following account of the bobolink (called the "ortolan," after the French delicacy), reprinted in the October 1829 issue.

At this season, the amateur of nature's melodies can be as much gratified with their delightful notes as the gourmand will be with their flesh in the autumn. Their notes are few but the intonation is more distinct than that of any other bird; it resembles the tones produced by a musical box more than any other thing to which I can compare it. But, after all, the music produced by the knives, forks, and plates at a table, honoured by the presence of these little gentlemen, is incomparably superior to any other we have ever heard; nay the very sight of them, strung up in dozens on the stalls of the Jersey market, early in a September morning is delightful. To see their little yellow rumps (ready picked for inspection) protruding between their wings, like lumps of amber, is indeed a great temptation; but when we come to the eating of them, then it is that we need not much wonder at the extravagence of the poet...who paid a guinea, which had been given him in charity, for one of them. In short, no man can say that he has tasted all of the best things, which a kind Providence has bestowed upon us, until he has eaten a dozen or two of these little birds nicely dressed.

And in contradiction to the sentiment expressed at the top of the page, small birds were not completely off the shooting list. Here is an extract published in June 1831:

In learning the use of the gun, the first object is to get the better of trepidation or apprehension at the instant of discharge...His first game must be small birds, particularly sparrows, which, in the manner of their covey and flight resemble partridges; and, as it has been well observed, the too common custom of practising upon the swallow tribe should be abandoned both because those birds are not only harmless but highly useful for the destruction of insects; and besides, too difficult for the aim of a beginner. It is in this sparrow, or small game novitiate, that the novice must, as far as possible, divest himself of that flutter of the spirits and almost paralytic eagerness...

This extract was actually from a British publication (not uncommon in the early days of the Turf Register), Scott's British Field Sports. Note the sensitivity to the status of the swallow as a harmless, useful bird. The (house) sparrow, on the other hand, despite Bradley's worm destruction numbers, could be shot for practice.

Despite the efforts of the Turf Builder and its readership, the "sportsman" would continue to be the butt of jokes and satires for a while longer, particularly when it came to the shooting of songbirds. The following parody, credited to the Connecticut Herald, was widely reprinted (it appeared in the New England Farmer on June 20, 1832).

Sport for Gentlemen

Take a double barrel fowling piece, with a shot bag and pouch, go into the fields and shoot the little birds that destroy the worms on the trees and the insects upon the plants. If by your success the field birds should be killed off or frightened away, set yourself down upon a bank and try your hand upon the useful and harmless swallows who are skimming the meadows on their swiftest wing. It will show your skill as a marksman and the pleasure of their dying scream will be greatly enhanced by the reflection that their unfledged offspring will die of starvation in their nests. It would be excellent employment at least. We know of one gentleman who makes it his sport.

On September 10, 1934, the New England Farmer ran the following more general satire, credited to Spy.

Hints to Sportsmen

This being the season for shooting birds, cows, and other animals, not excluding sometimes full grown children, a few general hints for the department of the field may be serviceable--so here they are:

If you are going more than a mile from home, and there are three of you, take a gig--it cuts a dash, and saves shoe leather.

Carry plenty of salt with you, for such game as Muscovy Ducks can be caught by sprinkling it upon their tails.

Be sure and let the muzzle of your guns project a quarter of a yard each out of the gig, to show all the people on the road that you are sportsmen, and know a thing or two.

On no account shoot game until you have got beyond the outskirts of the city, for the game may be diseased.

Take aim with both eyes shut--for the birds thinking that you cannot see them, will not take the trouble to fly away.

Take care that you do not shoot a cow or hog, instead of the sparrow you aim at.

If a tom-tit should stand in your way, do not shoot it, for powder and shot cost money; but knock its brains out with the butt-end of your gun

The guns of least repute among our common sportsmen are the best, those that scatter their shots the widest, as there is more chance of hitting the object; for if one won't, another will.

Good ducking may be had near any of the farm houses. If a farmer should attempt to expostulate with you, give him a little of the science.

In the choice of dogs be very particular--The bull dog and common cur are the best, the one for defending you against intruders, and the other for keeping away the shot.

Pay no regard to orchards and gardens, fruit and vegetables are worth nothing now, and a sparrow is not to be sneezed at.

It would not be long, however, until the sportsman was less a target of jokes, and more a target of gun marketing.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

The needless destruction of songbirds: Four articles from 1832.

During the spring of 1832, the New England Farmer ran four articles focused on the needless destruction of songbirds. The spring was uncommonly cold and wet and the insectivorous bird mortality rate, particularly among swallows, was very high, making the issue of shooting even more urgent than usual. Following the lead of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, calls went out for more vigorous enforcement of current laws as well as more informal methods of protection, especially from boys with guns.

The first article, published April 11, was drawn from the Salem Observer, with extracts from the Marblehead Register. It called for land-owners to guard their lands against trespass and bird shooters, and for parents to teach their boys about the relationship between birds and the fruit they loved.

The wanton destruction of birds and their eggs, at this season of the year, cannot too forcibly be reprehended. They were made to subserve the best purpose--the destruction of worms and insects that prey upon trees and vegetation generally. Now that our orchards are devastated by that scourge, the canker worm, the subject becomes of great importance; and if nothing else will check this most injudicious and ruinous practice, the strong arm of the law should be made to interpose. Let every land-holder, then, vigilantly guard his grounds in this respect; and punish every interloper and destroyer of birds, with more severity than he would the purloiner of fruit. A correspondent in the Marblehead Register has some sensible and timely remarks on this subject, from which we make the following extract:

The millers or small butterflies, from which the cankerworm is produced, and the worm itself, form the food of all the species of small birds which frequent our fields and gardens; and in every one of these which is wantonly destroyed by boys, we lose an active and efficient friend. So great indeed is the aid which they afford us, that I have heard a gentleman declare that he would give more for a wood-picker [sic] to work in this orchard than for a hired man. The common ground-sparrow and the robin are also of the most essential service in this way. Let parents, then, impress these facts on the minds of their boys, and if no other argument will do, let them appeal to the self-interest of their children and explain to them, that if they like apples, they must not go gunning nor rob birds' nests.

The next article, published on May 2, drew from the Baltimore American and New York American to criticize the laws and attitudes encouraging the destruction of useful birds:

Among the various examples of improvident legislation, (says the Baltimore American) may be reckoned the laws in which our State legislatures sometimes think it wise to encourage, by rewards, the slaughter of birds etc, which have unluckily incurred odium with the farmers. The New York American gives some examples of similar foolish hostility among the people, to these luckless ferae naturae, the effect of which is generally to substitute a greater evil by a supposed removal of a less. The ruinous increase of the Hessian fly some years since, was attributed, and justly, it says, to the great previous destruction of the woodpeckers and other birds feeding on insects. In one district, a war of two or three campaigns was valorously waged against the owls; and straightway the fields were overrun with field-mice. In another, the garter snakes were put under ban, and the consequence was that the grass-hoppers on which the garter snake feeds, infested the fields in clouds. It is not out of a mawkish humanity, but from a belief that nature will manage this matter best in her own way, that we recommend to those who would take it out of her hands, the lines of Southey to the spider--

I won't humanely crush thy bowels out,
Lest thou shouldst eat the flies.
The same journal very properly censures those wholesale hunts, to which bushels of squirrels, rabbits, partridges and other game fall victim to indiscriminate slaughter.

Note the rejection that this concern, extended to other targets of shooting, was due to "mawkish humanity," (the phantom charge of ignorant sentimentalism again) but rather "from a belief that nature will manage this matter best in her own way." The next item in the New England Farmer, a letter from "Julia," published on May 16, may be more vulnerable to that charge of sentimentalism, focused on the delightfulness and innocence of songbirds, with only a little attention to their usefulness to horticulture:

Of all the inexcusable wantonness of men and boys, that manifested in the destruction of the various beautiful birds which visit us in this delightful season is the most unaccountable. Who can look upon them with pain? To whom can they be offensive? Whom do they injure? On the contrary, who can behold them perched upon the trees, or winging their way from garden to grove and shrub to flower, without inexpressible emotions of delight? What ear attuned to harmony is not charmed with their simple melody? And who that can enjoy a walk or a ride in town or country or that has a taste for beauty and happiness can feel unwilling to see our trees and gardens animated with the presence of these gentle visitors? Why then hunt and destroy them? Why should it be allowed to killed them at any season?

If they could be protected for two or three years they would become so numerous as to destroy all our most injurious insects, and in that way greatly benefit the community, by increasing the quantity and improving the quality of our fruit. They would also become much more tame and would approach more nearly to our dwellings and public walks. How enchanting would our rural shades be rendered thereby; and how happy would those murderous boys be made to see them playing around our malls and alighting on every shrub in town or country.

Do, Mr. Fessenden, implore the boys, young and old, to obey the dictates of taste, sense and interest and desist from the further destruction of those amiable songsters.

The fourth article, published on June 6, was taken from the Salem Mercury, and titled, "Wanton destruction of birds." Here again the focus was on boys:

At this season, during the vacation of the different schools, there is a class of boys who are in the habit of treading down the grass of our fields and pastures, and injuring the branches of the fruit trees in the wicked and wanton habit of shooting birds. The insectivorous kinds, viz. the swallows, martins, redstarts, kingbirds, etc, which, previous to the wet weather of the last fortnight were abundant, have many of them perished.

The few that now remain are of infinitely more use than we have opportunity to discover, by the destruction of grubs, worms, and eggs of vermin. The black birds, or grackles, will at this season follow in the furrows of the plough and catch up large quantities of the yellow-headed grub worm; and of those birds complained of by the industrious farmer, for the mischief committed on this corn, one of the most correct observers of nature [Wilson] remarked, that "were he placed in his situtation, he should hesitate whether to consider these birds most as friends or enemies, as they are particularly destructive to almost all the noxious worms, grubs, and caterpillars that infest his fields, which, were they allowed to multiply unmolested, would soon consume nine-tenths of all the productions of his labor, and desolate the country with the miseries of famine." But with regard to a great proportion of our summer birds, they are insectivorous, destroying countless multitudes of destructive bugs and caterpillars, that infest the fruit trees in spring and summer, preying on the leaves, blossoms, and embryo of the fruit. The oriole, or golden robin, destroys hundreds of them without offering the slightest injury to the fruit that may encompass his nest.

I would therefore caution every boy against trespassing upon our fields and pastures with this murderous intent, particularly, as at this season birds are so engaged in the business of incubation and by cruelly taking away the parent they destroy a helpless brood of young.
I trust, therefore, that every honest farmer and horticulturalist will avail himself of the law of trespass, should he find young men shooting upon his lands, and thus put a stop to the indiscriminate slaughter of this beautiful part of animated nature, particularly this spring, as their services are much needed in destroying the small traveling caterpillar, which is now in great abundance.

The use of the law to prevent trespassing was perhaps the most effective means of protecting birds at this point in time. Indeed, the posting of no-trespassing signs on the borders of farmland appears to have become a commonly adopted practice by the 1830s.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Bird Protection and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society

The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, formed via a notice in the New England Farmer in 1829, held a special meeting on June 5, 1830. One of its items of business was to discuss Mary Griffith's proposal, and the Society agreed, with reservations (a cure for the curculio was unlikely to be found), to support a premium of $200 via subscription. At the same meeting, a committee was formed "to consider the expediency of recommending some measures to prevent the wanton destruction of useful birds."

On September 10, 1830, Zebedee Cook, the first president of the year-old Society, made its anniversary address. Quite lengthy, the New England Farmer published it across four issues, starting December 31, 1830. Near the end of the address (printed in the January 21, 1831 issue), Cook turned his attention to useful birds:

The protection and preservation of useful birds is a subject I would propose for your particular consideration. To those whose souls are attuned to the harmony of their music, who delight to listen to the warbling of nature's choristers, little need be urged to insure them security in the peaceful possession of their accustomed haunts. But if this consideration is not sufficient, there is another view in which the subject may be presented, that cannot fail to render them the objects of our care and watchfulness. We must either encourage them, or resign our gardens and orchards to the overwhelming ravages of innumerable insatiate insects. We must preserve them and consent to tolerate their minor depredations, or suffer them to be destroyed, and with them all hopes of preserving any portions of our fruits.

It is asserted upon competent authority, that nearly all the food of small birds from the commencement of spring to the middle of June consists of insects; and that a pair of sparrows during the time they have their young ones to provide for, destroy every week about three thousand three hundred caterpillars. By a wise and judicious enactment of the legislature of Massachusetts, the protection of law is extended to the preservation of certain kinds of birds that are enumerated, and a penalty provided for every infraction of its provisions. Let this association unite in giving efficacy to the laws by enforcing its operations upon every violator, and thus shall we subserve the public interests, protect our property, and preserve those innocent and useful colaborers, who amply repay us in the aid they afford, and in the gratification we derive from their presence, and in listening to their inspiring and animating melody.

These were familiar arguments, but Cook's prominence gave them particular force, particularly in the face of some (such as Mary Griffith, an honorary Society member) who would destroy all fruit-stealing birds. Cook's charge to the society was not for new legislation, necessarily, but to join forces in the enforcement of the 1818 Act.

Immediately following the useful bird remarks, Cook proposed that the Society create a cemetery in the style of Pere la Chaise. Mount Auburn Cemetery, effectively the first public bird sanctuary in the United States, was the result. New England Farmer editor and Society member, Thomas Green Fessenden, who would die suddenly in 1837, was among the first generation to be buried there.

Cook's remarks about bird protection were supported by a letter published in the New England Farmer on May 11, 1831, credited to a "Cultivator" from Brookline.

As had many before, the writer focused on the negative effects of "wanton" bird shooting.

Mr. Fessenden--Permit me, through the medium of your highly useful journal to call the attention of our farmers and horticulturalists to the wanton practice of many young men from Boston and its environs, of shooting the birds in this vicinity.

It is a well known fact that the alarming increase of worms and insects in making ravages upon our fruit trees and fruit, not only paralyzes the efforts and disheartens the hopes of the cultivator, but threatens total destruction to many of the most delicious kinds.--So extensive are their ravages that but very few of our apricots and plums ever ripen without premature decay from the worm generated by the beetles which surround our trees in the twilight of the evening in great numbers when the fruit is quite young. And when the produce of our apple pear of peach trees is small, but few of these escape the same fate.

I attribute the rapid and alarming increase of these worms and insects wholly to the diminution of those birds which fall a prey to our sportsmen, which are known to feed upon them and for whose subsistence these insects were apparently created.
In addition to the important usefulness of these birds, their musical notes in the twilight of the morning are peculiarly delightful; awaking the cultivator to the sublime contemplation and enjoyment of all the infinite beauties of creation.

In vain will be all our toil and labor, in vain the united efforts of Horticultural Societies for increasing and perfecting the cultivation of the most delicious varieties of fruits, unless we can increase, or at least cease to diminish these useful and melodious birds.

Unlike Cook, who referred to the existing 1818 Act, the writer sought both enforcement and additional legislative protection. (Remember that the existing statue offered protection among songbirds solely to the robin and meadowlark, and then only during breeding season.)

If we have a Statute in this Commonwealth providing for the protection of these birds, let us unite our efforts to arrest this wanton destruction of them by enforcing the penalties of the law in every instance of its violation. Our Horticultural Society can scarcely do a greater service in promoting the objects of its organization than by making a spontaneous and vigorous effort to this effect.

If there be no Statute for the protection of these invaluable creatures, I would earnestly, yet respectfully suggest to the Horticultural Society the propriety and even necessity of their petitioning our Legislature at their next session for such an act.

It would take the united force of the Society to enforce the laws through to conviction but it was the members' moral duty.

It is a common practice with these sportsmen through the summer to range the groves and orchards, in this vicinity, almost every pleasant day and more numerously on holidays, and to shoot every bird that comes within their reach.

It is not, however, a small nor an easy task for one individual, to get their names, residence, and the evidence necessary for their conviction; but it requires the united efforts of all who are immediately interested. Already have these sportsmen commenced their wanton destruction of these useful creatures, even before they had time to build a nest for rearing of their young--Birds that have survived the dreary winter in a more genial clime, having now returned to bless our efforts by their industry and to cheer our days with their melody, are scarcely permitted to commence their vernal song, ere they must fall victims to a WANTON IDLENESS that is as destitute of moral feeling, as of useful employment.

The identity of the "cultivator" from Brookline is unknown, though Samuel Cabot, a naturalist and early member of the Society, is a possible candidate. Cabot's bird identifications were instrumental in the production of the first Massachusetts geological survey. Thomas Green Fessenden reprinted the letter in his Complete Farmer and Rural Economy in a section devoted to useful birds.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Ecological Allies or Horticultural Enemies

In 1830, an interesting exchange happened in the pages of the New York Farmer, highlighting some points of contention between those who regarded birds as ecological allies and those who believed some of them were enemies needing to be destroyed.

The plum curculio is a common insect in orchards and, until the age of insecticides, its control presented a great puzzle to orchard owners. In early 1830, a horticulturalist, identifying herself as "a patriotic lady in New Jersey," [almost certainly Mary Griffith] wrote to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society proposing a premium for their destruction. This letter was in turn circulated to other horticultural societies and then published in associated periodicals (The New England Farmer, e.g., on May 21, 1830).

While the horticultural societies eventually gave the plan their blessings, they had some misgivings. The New York Horticultural Society put theirs in writing. A report of the "Committee of the New-York Horticultural Society on the proposition of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society respecting a Premium for destroying Insects," published in the May 1830 issue of the New York Farmer, articulated what was really a proto-ecological argument against the plan.

Broadening the discussion to the questions of insects and fruit trees in general, the report asserted that the search for "cures" to the problem of insects was misguided, forgetting "the limited nature of our own powers." Indeed,

The genial sun, and the mild atmosphere on which the maturity and fine flavor of our fruit depend, are equally propitious to the hosts of Insects which are sustained by these fruits, and which are destined to prevent the intended monopoly of man in the bounties of creation.

Horticulturalists should not expect to control the situation through a war-like attitude, but might take advantage of natural forces to diminish the harm.

It is a fact, also, worth noticing, that the war of extermination is not to be waged indiscriminately against the whole race, since even among these minute beings there exist carnivorous tribes which prey exclusively on the weaker species...and thus render essential service to man in destroying his foes.

In general, one might rely on the birds for some help:

But the most useful auxiliaries of the horticulturalist against his insect enemies, are the Insectivorous Birds. The number which a single individual of the feathered race will destroy in one year far exceeds all that could be effected by the utmost stretch of human power; and hence it is the obvious interest of every one concerned in the cultivation of fruit to cherish and protect from injury those useful servants, to encourage them, as much as possible, to frequent the orchard and garden, and increase the numbers of those which are capable of domestication.

The "patriotic lady" [Griffith] made a vociferous reply, printed in the October 1830 issue of the New York Farmer (originally published in the National Gazette). She focused on the bird argument in particular, asserting that birds, for example, avoided hairy caterpillars:

If a single bird, or as the New York committee express themselves, "an individual of the feathered race," which they say, "can effect more than what can be accomplished by the utmost stretch of human power," why do not the countless numbers of birds which inhabit the farmers who never allow a gun to be heard on their premises--why do they not, in return for the quiet they enjoy, relieve his trees from caterpillars? The truth is this--birds never, under any emergency, prey upon these horny, hairy, slimy caterpillars. I have known them to abandon their nest, when the tree has been polluted with them, and rather than do this, so strong is their attachment to their offspring, even before they are hatched, they would certainly prefer to destroy these vermin, if it were not so repugnant to their instincts.

Birds, including barnyard poultry, may be useful for the agriculturalist but not for the horticulturalist:

Those, therefore, who so strenuously recommend poultry and birds for the extermination of the curculio and caterpillar talk of what they do not understand. Barnyard poulty can get at but few of the grubs or larvae of insects because their instinct impels them to secrete themselves below the reach of such assaults. In a soft, moist soil, the fowls scratch about and pick up ground worms and such small chrysalids and seeds as lie near the surface; but this does not amount to much, for the field of action is confined to favorable spots, always in broad sunny places--never under the shade of trees, and when they do go there, it is to retreat from excessive heat. I have carefully watched their operations, and I know that a hen rarely leads her young under trees which are bare of weeds and grass (as all orchard trees should be) to search for food.

To agriculturalists, who generally have but small kitchen gardens, well enclosed by a paling fence, poultry can be very servicable, for they destroy a great number of grasshoppers, crickets and field butterflies. But to the horticulturalist, I say it again, they are positively injurious, and indeed useless, for as the horticulturalist raises no grain nor grass, he does not fear the ravages of the cricket or grasshopper, insects that only harbour among weeds and grasses. I am as fond of seeing poultry on a farm as any one, and if I consulted my own pleasure I would never allow a bird to be destroyed; but I am now advocating the extensively beneficial scheme of providing cheap and delicious fruits for the young and aged, the sick and the poor, as well as to insure profit to the orchardist. How can I accomplish this, unless I can root out ignorant prejudice and false sensibilities?

Indeed, birds were enemies of the orchard, the garden, and the honey bee.

I have upwards of one hundred cherry trees of the finest varieties, but never think of getting any of the fruit, for the birds and the curculio carry off and destroy it all, and in districts where the curculio is never seen, birds devour all the fine cherries. They likewise strike their bills into the ripe peaches, thus making an opening for wasps and ants, who quickly demolish the fruit, which but for the first puncture would have been safe from their attack. Birds are as fond of grapes as of cherries, and if they are not disturbed, they will soon eat up all the early kinds, and gardeners know how difficult it is to prevent them from destroying lettuce seeds, and other small seeds. They are very destructive to bees--the cat-bird, the martin, the blue jay, and king bird will stand in a convenient place in an apiary and devour bees by the dozen; and the worst of it is that many of the destructive insects, which might fall a prey to the voracity of birds, only make their appearance at night, when the birds are at rest.

Horticulturalists, and, above all, those who have formed themselves into a society for the especial purpose of advancing the interests of horticulture, should direct all their efforts to the destruction of those insects and birds which destroy flowers, vegetables, trees, and fruit, and leave it to the agricultural societies to guard their craft from the depredations of those birds and insects which commit such havoc upon the grain, grasses and cattle.

In short, countering the "live and let live" attitude of the New York Horticultural society, she maintained an aggressive program of destruction, both of insect and bird enemies.

As might be expected, the New York Horticultural Society did not accept her accusations quietly, responding in an equally vociferous response in the November 1830 issue of the New York Farmer. Unfortunately, for our purposes, the writers didn't address the specific charges made against birds, choosing to make a general attack on her essay and expertise, which contained "marked disapprobation of the views of the committee" and represented "new-fangled strain of sentiments, so totally different from every other writer on subjects connected with horticulture" as to be dismissible. Note the mutual charges of "ignorant prejudice and false sensibilities," the kind of rhetorical impasse that would ultimately make the relative objectivity of economic ornithology research a practical necessity.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

An enthusiasm for ornithologies

During the early 1830s there was a growing public enthusiasm for works of American ornithology. Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology became available in affordable (if still expensive) editions, Thomas Nuttall would publish his own Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada, and John James Audubon's adventures in bird collecting were covered by farm and general newspapers alike. The ornithologies provided content for agricultural periodicals, who published them with the intent of teaching farmers to be more discriminating and just in their relationship to birds.

The New-York Farmer and Horticultural Repository began running extracts from Wilson's Ornithology in February, 1830, supplied by a correspondent who had parted with a significant sum to buy the work. Indeed, a rationalization of the cost was featured in the extract's introduction:

To an intimate friend, I spoke of my intention to buy a copy of this work. "Why will you lay out so much money on a book?" Because I intend it as a part of the education of my children. We are eight in family--the price is forty dollars--that is five dollars a piece to give them a new interest in every bird that visits our fields or woods; and to render every walk in the verdant season a new source of pleasurable sensations. "Only forty dollars! Oh! I should like a copy at that price myself." [$40 in 1830 is estimated to be around $1000 today; note that Audubon's Birds of America cost over a $1000 in 1830s dollars!]

Over the next year or so, the correspondent regularly copied out and mailed in extracts, beginning with the brown thrasher, continuing with the robin and bluebird, and then in the April issue, the king-bird and purple martin, introduced as follows:

The design on these ornithological notices is to make our farmers and gardeners better acquainted with their feathered FRIENDS.

None names the wren, the blue-bird, the barn swallow, and some others, without kind feelings; and the robin, although he visits the cherry tree and the currant bush, is welcome at any other season. There are birds, however, whose services are as eminent as these, whom I fear we treat with injustice and even cruelty, because the indulgence of their taste slightly interferes with the indulgence of ours.

Without inquiring whether birds have any rights or whether all right is founded on power I appeal at once to the good sense of the cultivator, strong in the hope that he will not persevere in a course discountenanced both by self-interest and benevolence; but that he will at least calculate the benefits as well as the injury which he receives from birds; and as it is supposed that resentment is a stronger impulse than gratitude, that he will, on this score, deliberately and properly make the necessary corrections.

The birds selected for this number of the New-York Farmer are charged with the same vice, that of eating bees. I know not that they interfere in any other manner to the injury of our rural economy; neither, of all our domestic animals, do I know one whose trespasses at times we do not sensibly feel, and yet forgive.

Note the reference to, and quick move away from, the question of birds' natural rights [that this was even a question suggests an advance in animal rights discourse]. The purpose of the extracts from Wilson was to allow the cultivator to make informed decisions (and to counter the biases of writers like Butler).

In 1832, Thomas Nuttall published his Manual with the explicit intention of producing a book that, unlike those by Audubon or Wilson (or Wilson's successor, Bonaparte), was both "portable and cheap." Excerpts were run by the New England Farmer (January 18, 1832), introduced as follows:

A work entitled, "A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada" by Thomas Nuttall...has just been published...A work of this kind, well executed, is of more importance to Cultivators than by some may be apprehended. The feathered bipeds, which compose the most beautiful part of the animal creation, are mostly either adversaries or coadjutors of the Farmer--they either help him or annoy him. A knowledge of their natural history, habits, manners, beneficial and mischievous propensities, is as useful as it is amusing and every rural economist ought to be able to take advantage of the one and counteract the other...

As in the case of the Wilson in the New York Farmer, the recommendation of Nuttall by the New England Farmer was not necessarily designed to create sentiment supportive of bird protection legislation but rather to provide factual information useful for farmers.

John James Audubon, meanwhile, had become America's first ornithological celebrity. General notices of Audubon's work began appearing in newspapers in 1827 (he had been collecting and painting for two decades already by that point) along with sample extracts from his companion work, the Ornithological Biography, especially his chapter on Wild [Passenger] Pigeons. In 1829, with his work displayed in the New York Lyceum of Natural History, notices began appearing calling his Birds of America "the most magnificent work ever ventured upon...by individual enterprise." Favorable reviews, such as one run in the July 1831 issue of Blackwood's furthered his fame. By 1832, news stories of Audubon's latest American adventures, supported by regular correspondence from Audubon himself, became a common newspaper feature. (Note that it was the travelogue aspect rather than the ornithological information that was the probably the chief appeal). In 1835 the Genessee Farmer began running excerpts from Audubon.

According to the 1831 story in Blackwood's, a parallel development had been happening in Great Britain--a rage for bird books.

How we come to love the Birds of Bewick, and White, and the two Wilsons, and Montagu, and Mudie, and Knapp, and Selby, and Swainson, and Syme, and Audubon, and many others, so familiar with their haunts and habits, their affections and their passions, till we feel that they are indeed our fellow creatures, and part of one wise and wonderful system!

Note the presence of Wilson and Audubon on the list. Readers who wish to be absorbed in British bird books, early 1800s-style, are invited to use the links below.

Thomas Bewick: History of British Birds Vol 1. (1797 ed.) Vol 2. (1804 ed.)

Gilbert White: The Natural History of Selborne (1829 ed.)

George Montagu: Ornithological Dictionary (1802 ed.)

Robert Mudie: The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands Vol 1. (1835 ed.) Vol 2. (1835 ed.)

John Knapp: The Journal of a Naturalist (1829 ed.)

Prideaux John Selby: Illustrations of British Ornithology Vol 1. (1833 ed.) Vol 2. (1833 ed.)

William Swainson and John Richardson: Fauna Boreali-Americana; or the Zoology of British America, Part Second, THE BIRDS. (1831 ed.)

Patrick Syme: A Treatise on British Song-Birds. (1823 ed.)