cultural Department on a large scale and those
made by various local experiment stations and by individual observers
have given results which are very striking and which can no longer be
ignored.

It is a difficult matter for any one to balance the good things that
he reads and believes about any animal against the bad things that he
actually sees. The man who witnesses the theft of his cherries by
robin or catbird, or the killing of a quail by a marsh hawk, feels
that here he has ocular proof of harm done by the birds, while as to
the insects or the field mice destroyed, and the crops saved, he has
only the testimony of some unknown and distant witness. It is only
natural that the observer should trust the evidence of his senses, and
yet his eyes tell him only a small part of the truth, and that small
part a misleading one.

It is certain that without the services of these feathered laborers,
whose work is unseen, though it lasts from daylight till dark through
every day in the year, agriculture in this country would come to an
immediate standstill, and if in the brief season of fruit each one
of these workers levies on the farmer the tribute of a few berries,
the price is surely a small one to pay for the great good done.
Superficial persons imagine that the birds are here only during the
summer, but this is a great mistake. It is true that in warm weather,
when insect life is most abundant, birds are also most abundant. They
wage an effective and unceasing war against the adult insects and
their larvae, and check their active depredations; but in winter the
birds carry on a campaign which is hardly less important in its
results.

THE SCARLET TANAGER.

One of the most brilliant and striking of all American birds is
the Scarlet Tanager. From its black wings resembling pockets, it
is frequently called the "Pocket Bird." The French call it the
"Cardinal." The female is plain olive-green, and when seen together
the pair present a curious example of the prodigality with which
mother nature pours out her favors of beauty in the adornment of some
of her creatures and seems niggardly in her treatment of others. Still
it is only by contrast that we are enabled to appreciate the quality
of beauty, which in this case is of the rarest sort. In the January
number of BIRDS we presented the Red Rumped Tanager, a Costa Rica
bird, which, however, is inferior in brilliancy to the Scarlet, whose
range extends from eastern