Living Flycatchers
About Keeping Wild Birds for Controlling Pests
Flies were a general problem for the peasantry in pre-industrial society. Due to presence of excrement, foodstuff and rubbish in and around the houses flies of many species thrived in this environment. There were of course many ways of trying to control them. Mechanical extermination by using homemade fly flaps was one way; various kind of poison (fly agarics, wolf’s-bane, common toadflax) was another. One more primitive way of biological controlling the indoor pests was to catch wild insectivorous birds and release them in the house. In the sources there are several examples of this from southern Sweden, northern Finland and various places in central Europe. Although we have no information about how common it was it seems to have been a widespread practice among the peasantry. Also Carl Linnaeus was familiar with this method. When house crickets (Acheta domesticus) became too numerous in his home, he captured a tree creeper (Certhia familiaris) to control them.
