Consider now what would be the effect of the total destruction of birds. Birds are nature's check to the amazing power of insects to increase. If insect life were allowed free course, it would soon overpower vegetation; and plant life--and, therefore, animal life, including that of man--would be impossible upon this globe. This is an astounding conclusion, but it is sustained by the judgment of every man of science who has investigated the subject. How long could the ravages of insects be stayed were the birds gone? We should have to depend upon a few predaceous beetles, the bats, and upon the sprayers and squirtguns which throw insecticides. Think of the aesthetic loss in substituting these agencies for the "sweet spirits" of the wood and field! Besides not being musical or charming in action, they would not prove efficient. Birds are therefore essential to the life of man. Their preservation is not merely a matter of sentiment, or of education in that high and fine feeling, kindness to all living things. It has a utilitarian side of vast extent, as broad as our boundless fields and our orchards' sweep. The birds are nature's guarantee that the reign of the crawlers and spinners shall not become universal. The "plague of locusts" shall be upon those who sin against them. III THE DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS From almost all sections of the country comes the plaint that the song birds are fast disappearing. Less and less numerous are the yearly visitations of the thrushes, warblers, song sparrows, orioles, and the others whose habits have been so delightful and whose music has been so cheering to their open-eyed and open-hearted friends. Many, who when listening to the hymn-like cadences of the wood thrush have felt that the place was holy ground, are now keenly regretting that this vesper song is so rare; the honest sweetness of the song sparrow mingles with the coarser sounds less often in the accustomed places. Not many now find "the meadows spattered all over with music" by the bobolink, as Thoreau did.