Statistics of Peruvian Guano [pp. 348-349]

348 STATISTICS OF PERUVIAN GUANO.
doing any public or private good, are really spreading mischief by their business
-are they not?-quite equal in amount to the benefits conferred by the Godgiven instinct, of the beautiful and useful birds. This is the letter of C. M.
Clay which has been referred to:
" At daybreak I estimate that four hundred songsters break forth into one
grand jubilation of mingled song on my thirty acres of fruit and pleasure
grounds. Among these I note the catbird, the thrush, the blue. black, and red
birds, the bell martin, the dove. lark, and quail, the sparrow and humming bird,
robin and jay, the house-porch and barn swallows, and many varieties of orioles, woodpeckers, sapsuckers, &c. To-day, my mind running upon the use of
birds, I took my position about fifteen feet from the nest of an oriole, built in
the top of a peach-tree, twelve feet high, to observe their habits. The nest is
formed of blades of blue grass, worked into a basket form on the limbs of the
peach-tree, acting as braces. This variety has the female of a dusky bluish
yellow-the male black headed and blackish wings, with a brick-dust or robin
redbreast color on the breast and sides. There are four young ones well
fledged, which every now and then stand upon the edges of the nest and try
their wings. I lay upon the greensward a long time, and observed the movements of the parents, with my watch in hand. They made a visit with food about
every four minutes on an average, varying in time from two to six minutes.
They would light upon the black locust trees, the vine, the grass, and other
places, clinging at times to the most delicate and extreme points of the leaves. I
observed plainly green and brown grasshoppers, caterpillars, and smaller flies;
sometimes one and sometimes as many as six were plainly fed to the youn
ones, whose heads I could see above the nest. They would also carry back the
refuse litter from the nest, dropping it fifty yards or more off! which same
thing I saw the brown thrush, which has a nest in a climbing rose about forty
yards off, also doing, they having four young ones.
INSECTS.
2 birds making a visit every 4 minutes=I in 2.
60 minutes divided by 2= 30 visits in an hour.
4 worms on an average= 120 worms to the hour.
6 working hours=720 a day.
200 pairs on the grounds= 144,000 a day.
200 pairs in 30 days=4,420,000 a month.
200 pairs in 8 months-= 353,600,000.
200 pairs old ones, do. by 2=707.200,000 in the season.
400 crows, do., by 2 do.=1,414,400,000.
400 do., eating 4 times, by 4=5,577,600,000.
Crows and birds together=6,364,800,000.
Double the estimate of birds and crows, which I think fair on my farm, and we have
6,364,800,000k 4=25,459,200,000.
" That is to say, twenty-five billions four hundred and fifty-nine millions and
two hundred thousand caterpillars and other insects destroyed in one year! If
these estimates seem large, we must remember that the' circulation and respiration of birds are extremely rapid, and of course the consumption of food rapid
in proportion.
" Here is no'sickly sentimentality,' but plain economical facts, based upon
observation. Shall we spare the crows and other birds a little corn and fruit;
or shall we kill them, and revive the famines of the East, and the ravages of
other days? Shall we fire on them in the morning, or join in their universal
jubilation?"
2.-STATISTICS OF PERUVIAN GUANO.
Table of Deposits-Southern Section.
Chipana (lat. 21~ 22' S.).. 280,692 tons.
Huanillas (lat. 21 18'S.)................................... 1,912 505
Punta De Lobos (lat. 21~ 6' S.)...........1,460,790 "
Pabellon de Pica (lat. 20~ 57' S.)..............................2,975,000 "
Puerto Ingles (lat. 20~ 46'S.)...............................1,292,510 "
Total.........,,.7,921,407 "