Bird Protection in Cross-cultural Perspective (1857-1861)

In its June 1857 edition, the New England Farmer included the following passage in what was otherwise a standard "spare the birds" story:

In Japan the birds are regarded as sacred, and never under any pretense are they permitted to be destroyed. During the stay of the expedition at Japan a number of officers started on a gunning excursion. No sooner did the people observe the cruel slaughtering of their favorites than a number of them waited upon the Commodore and remonstrated against the conduct of the officers. There was no more bird shooting in Japan by American officers after that; and when the treaty between the two countries was concluded, one express condition of it was, that the birds should always be protected. 

When it came to the treatment of birds, the United States compared unfavorably.

What a commentary upon the inhuman practice of our shooting gentry, who are as eager in the pursuit of a tomtit as of an eagle, and indiscriminately shoot everything in the form of a bird which has the misfortune to come within the reach of their murderous weapons. 

In Japan birds were not just protected, they were nurtured:

On the top of the tombstones in Japan, a small cavity or trough is chiseled, which the priests every morning fill with fresh water for the use of the birds. Enlightened America should imitate these customs of the barbarous Japanese, if not by providing fresh water for the feathered warblers, at least by protecting them from the worthless louts who so ruthlessly destroy them. Unless something is done, and that speedily, our insectivorous birds will be wholly exterminated…

I've looked at this particular passage in depth in a longer working paper. Suffice it to say, such comparisons were opportunities to reflect critically on bird protection at the level of the nation, not just state or local community. Even the "barbarous" Japanese knew how wise it was to protect birds. America had to change its ways.

As we've seen, England was a common object of comparison (and confusion). C.N. Bement, for example, in his 1858 entry in the Rural Annual, "Birds both useful and injurious to the farmer and horticulturist," relates the Japanese story above and joins it to the story of the British rook:

In England, says a writer, there is scarcely a farm 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 recreant, unruly boys and loafers, who, as far as utility is concerned, are not to be compared to crows; but the error of this step soon became manifest and they are now received with universal welcome. 

The editor of the Rural Annual, incidentally, was not as well versed in U.S. and British birds, and thus labeled an image of a blue tit, a "creeper." 

A February 1857 article in the New England Farmer drew attention to the "peculiar habits and manners of the Dutch," one of which was a "peculiar veneration for the stork." The author also noted more general legal protections for birds:

Stringent local laws are in force in all the provinces to protect the nightingales and other singing birds, which are quite numerous, from harm and molestation and any infraction of the laws is severely punished.

In July 1858, the American Farmer decried the peculiarly American "War on Birds," 

[T]he people of no other country in the world are so barbarous and cruel in their warfare upon birds, as the people of this. The little sparrows are found in great numbers in every village and city in Europe; no one ever disturbs them, and among the Turks so tame are the sea-birds that they will scarcely move from the prow of the light caique; and shall we "do that, Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?" [Shakespeare, Othello]

Note that such protections could go hand-in-hand with efforts to import insectivorous birds, already identified and protected as "useful" in other countries.

So Germany could be considered a model for national bird protection laws,  as "G.H.B." observed in an 1861 article in The Horticulturist

When we go to Europe, especially to western Germany, we are surprised at the multitude of birds there, in comparison with those of our own land; and the cause of this scarcity with us is generally considered to be the wanton destruction committed on the feathered tribe….

and its useful birds would be useful to have and protect in the United States

[I]f circumstances had permitted, we should have tried long ago to import from Europe some of the moth-snapper varieties of birds…; also the grub-destroyer, King Sturnus, or starling, who follows every plow in the field….

The importation of house sparrows had just begun. The European starling would come a bit later. Both were initially valued as "useful" birds. Their protection in the U.S. would not endure.

The Massachusetts Bird Law of 1855 and the dawn of Economic Ornithology

In April 1855 Massachusetts revised its bird law. This would have far-reaching impacts: it changed the relationship between the agricultural press and bird protection, and spurred the first study that can be called full-fledged "economic ornithology."

Earlier posts have discussed the 1818 bird law, its reception, and revisions. That law had provided a close season on robins and meadowlarks and had allowed land-owners to ban hunting on their properties. The new law, "An Act for the better preservation of Useful Birds," inspired by the "small bird laws" passed in Connecticut and New Jersey, spread the net more widely, mentioning by name, "robins, thrushes, linnets, sparrows, bluebirds, bobolinks, yellow-birds, woodpeckers, [and] warblers [note the omission of meadowlarks!]" Unlike the previous law, it prohibited the taking, killing, or destruction of these birds during the full year and made no provisions allowing land-owners to do what they liked on their own property.

An article in the Barre [MA] Patriot (August 3, 1855), suggests the difficulties with enforcing a law like this in the absence of widespread ornithological knowledge.

The first case that we have heard of under the new law for the preservation of useful birds, came before the Boston police court last Saturday. L.D. Fowler was the accused, and he was charged with the violation of the law inasmuch as he had a large number of bobolinks in his possession. As it was only proved that he had them in his possession, the judge held that he might have raised them, or have taken them before the law went into effect, and he was discharged.

Lest there be any question: L.D. Fowler was guilty. Bobolinks, being migratory birds, do not generally arrive in Massachusetts before May, and the idea that they might have been "raised" is extremely farfetched.  [In fact, bobolinks were sometimes caught and sold as cage birds during this era].

Fruit-growers, accustomed to managing the depredations of robins during cherry season, rebelled against the law. During its January 9, 1858 meeting the Massachusetts Horticultural Society voted to allow the president of the society to ask the legislature to revise the new law. Robins should be removed from the protected list. Some members, citing the robin's value in controlling harmful insects, offered a counter-proposal: delay the request for the robin's exclusion until a full-year study of the food habits of the robin could be performed. J.W.P. [John Whipple Potter] Jenks, entomologist, would be in charge of the study.

T.S. Palmer (1899) calls Jenks's study the first economic ornithology investigation "along modern lines." As we've seen previously, short-term spot investigations of birds' crops and stomach contents had become somewhat routine. Jenks's study, while employing that basic method, would be systematic and long-term, with weekly (and sometimes daily) samples taken between March and September.  According to Palmer, Jenks's revealed the following American Robin diet over the course of the year:

Stomachs taken in March and April contained only insect matter, 90 percent consisting of the larvae of crane flies…From May 1 to June 21 [those] larvae disappeared, but were replaced by a variety of insects, including caterpillars, elaterid beetles, and spiders. From late June to October the stomachs contained strawberries, cherries, and other fruits, but after October the vegetable diet was discarded and replaced by grasshoppers and orthopterous insects.

By June, farm papers were announcing the preliminary results of the study. The New England Farmer, calling the results "favorable to robins," reported that during the first three months of the study Jenks had found only larvae in the crops of the birds, no vegetable matter. The American Farmers' Magazine, in an article titled, "The Robins Vindicated," asserted that the study had "settled the question in favor of the robins."

Meanwhile, in the May issue of the New England Farmer, Wilson Flagg had made a long defense of the robin, suggesting that fruit-growers plant more cherry trees and blueberries to provide a share to robins, instead of petitioning the legislature.

Fruit-growers, however, were not necessarily convinced.

N. Page Jr., of the Essex Agricultural Society, in an October 1859 letter to the New England Farmer, portrayed the law as an assault upon individual rights:

The Bird Law, sent through the Commonwealth on hand-bills last spring, was received, in this neighborhood at least, as a very pretty specimen of Imperial Legislation. Most people here think that a man should have an undisputed right to his own fruit. They fully believe that a free citizen, of a moderately free country, should be allowed to protect his own fruit in his own garden, against the depredations of any wild beast, or bird, that runs or flies. But, although they claim the right, they do not unduly exercise it. Farmers are not devoid of all humanities…

The discovery that robins eat insects was not a surprise, and not of particular benefit to the fruit-grower. And it was not economically feasible for fruit-growers to grow extra fruit for the birds, as Wilson Flagg, among others, had suggested.

I remember that the "Star" correspondent [Flagg] of the Farmer gives no heed to profit or loss, but with admirable coolness, and an easy flourish of his pen, devotes a "large part of our currants, strawberries, and cherries" to the robins….But, permit me to ask, "Who pays the piper?" If friend "Star" should be compelled to pay, as I do, three dollars per day for the "chirping," we should see a "hopping about" infinitely more entertaining than a robin dance. 

Finally, protecting robins was an act of philanthropy. Even if they were protected in Massachusetts, they were not protected nation-wide. Thus, robins fattened with Massachusetts fruit would end up eaten in the South.

The editors of the New England Farmer, tempering its long standing defense of robins, showed sympathy to Page's concerns.

We do not wonder at the sensitiveness manifested by fruit-raisers with regard to the "bird-law."...We like the birds, and encourage their residing near our buildings; but unless the cherry-birds, robins and orioles mind their manners, we shall not listen to their music with as much pleasure as we have heretofore. Mr. Page is pretty severe, and has cause to be so.

In the December 1859 New England Farmer ("Charity for the Robins"), J.S. Needham took direct aim at the Jenks study itself, finding its evidence insufficient even on the grounds of economic ornithology. 

[W]hat incalculable benefit to the poor soil-tiller are four or six birds destroying some five or six hundred worms daily out of millions of millions…

Meanwhile, the editors of the New England Farmer in their notes for December continued the robin-doubting theme:

The birds, those summer friends of ours, [we hardly know whether it is quite fair to call those robins that stole all our cherries and strawberries, "our friends,"] most of them leave us, and sing their songs to other ears.

Ultimately, however, Jenks's continuing research had done the trick. Robins continued to have protection, at least in theory, in Massachusetts, and his work was regularly cited by editors and correspondents in the agricultural press to defend robins. Some agricultural periodicals, on the other hand, wondered if their "spare the birds" message had gone too far and would call for more economic ornithological input into what would be called "the bird question."