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DEPARTMENT Or AGRICULTURE

Dr. ARTHUR W. GILBERT, Commissioner
136 STATE HOUSE. BOSTON

THE UT .H'Y OF BIRDS!

SECOND EDITION, REVISED

DIVISION OF ORNITHOL CY.

F.DWARD HOWL FORBU5H, Dir

BOSTON

HT 6- i^OTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS
32 D^RNE STREET
1922

EXCHANGE

A MONUMENT TO SEA GULLS.

Western gulls saved from death by starvation the first Mormon settlers in Utah. This monument
was erected in Salt Lake City by the grateful people, at an expense of $40,000, to commemorate
the event. (From Bird-Lore. See page 21.)

Department Bulletin No. 9

QJommflttuiealilj of

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Dr. ARTHUR W. GILBERT, Commissioner
136 STATE HOUSE, BOSTON

THE UTILITY OF BIRDS

SECOND EDITION, REVISED

DIVISION OF ORNITHOLOGY

EDWARD HOWE FORBU5H, Director

\

BOSTON

WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING CO.. STATE PRINTERS

32 DERNE STREET

1922

PUBLICATION OF THIS DOCUMENT

APPROVED BY THE

SUPERVISOR OF ADMINISTRATION.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction, ........... 5

The Function of Birds in Nature, . 7

Utility of Insect-eating Birds, . . . . . 14

Quantity of Insects eaten by Young Birds, . . .... . . 18

Quantity of Insect Food required by Adult Birds, .... 19

Crops and Trees saved from Destruction by Birds, .... 20

Decrease of Birds followed by Increase of Destructive Insects, . . 37

Increase of Birds followed by Decrease of Destructive Insects, . . 42

Birds as Weed Destroyers, ......... 45

Birds as Distributors and Planters of Seeds, . . . * . . .46
Birds as Scavengers, . . . . . . . . .47

Utility of Birds of Prey, 47

Services rendered by Shore Birds, Marsh Birds, Waterfowl and Sea Birds, . 53

Cash Value of Birds' Services 60

Utility of Birds in War 63

Commercial Value of Birds, ......... 64

Early Abundance of Game Birds, . . . . . . .65

Game Birds as Food, ......... 65

Eggs of Sea Birds as Food 69

Feathers of Sea Birds and Wild-fowl for Bedding 70

Feathers for Ornament 72

Shooting Birds for Sport, ......... 75

Value of Birds in Domestication, 76

Fertility from the Sea — Immense Value of Guano Deposits, . . 77

Esthetic, Sentimental and Educational Value of Birds, 80

484681

THE UTILITY OF BIEDS.

INTRODUCTION.

There is a continual demand for literature setting forth the
usefulness of our native birds. In the introductory chapter to
my "Useful Birds and their Protection" the subject of the
utility of birds in nature was treated at some length, but as
that work, having passed through several editions, is now out
of print, it seems necessary to treat the subject briefly as an
introduction to this bulletin, so that the reader, as a necessary
preliminary before examining the evidence regarding the value
of birds to man, may realize something of their function in nature.

Our globe teems with life. Uncounted myriads of plants and
animals encompass the earth, dwell in the sea, or float upon the
invisible waves of the atmosphere. Earth's animals and plants
vary in size from that of the infinitesimal atom, too small for
the human eye to discern through the most powerful micro-
scope, up to that of the mighty whale, 90 feet in length, and
the great sequoia of California, 325 feet high, or the giant
eucalyptus of Australia, reaching a height of 470 feet.

Let one examine carefully a few square yards of grassland in
summer and see how many individuals of plant and animal life
he will find.1 Let him look thoroughly over the bark of a single
tree and note how many insect species are living on or under it.
During a few hours of one July night off the Maine coast we
saw in the dark, flashing waters myriads of fish limned in
phosphorescent light darting away from the prow of our vessel.
For 10 miles we plowed through their countless, never-ending
hordes, apparently all of one size and one species, and no one
knows how much farther their hosts extended. Yet we could
not have seen them at all but for the light produced by the
countless millions of Noctilucse which illumined every moving
thing in those waters. The numbers of these tiny animals have
been estimated at 30,000 to each cubic inch. How many of
these atomies, representing only one form of life, existed in that
sea through which those millions of fish were swimming?

1 Mr. W. L. McAtee found 1,254 individual forms of insects and other small animal life, and
3,113 seeds on 4 square feet of meadow land (Science, New Series, Vol. XXVI, No. 666, Oct. 4,
1907, p. 447).

6

The number of species of living animals and plants on the
earth is vast, and the number of individuals entirely beyond
human comprehension. The chief efforts of every individual
of each species go to preserve its life and to produce seed or
offspring and so multiply its kind, but always and everywhere
similar efforts of the many other organisms by which each
species is surrounded tend to hold its multiplication in check.
Huxley says that if there were but a single plant in the world,
and that plant should produce but fifty seeds each year and
multiply unchecked, its progeny would cover the globe in nine
years. The oak produces quantities of acorns. Were each seed
to develop into a tree the earth in time would be covered with
oaks, and all other trees would be crowded out. But many
mammals, birds and insects feed on acorns and so prevent their
germination; others feed on the seedling trees and destroy
bark, leaf and wood, so that on the average each mature oak
during all the years of its long life succeeds in producing but one
other to live and take its place. The fulmar petrel, so says
Darwin, lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the most
numerous species of bird in the world. Wallace estimates that
the unchecked increase of any pair of birds having four young
each year would amount to 2,000,000,000 birds in fifteen years.
However, such an enormous multiplication never happens be-
cause snakes, turtles, crows, hawks, jays, squirrels, raccoons,
cats, foxes and many other creatures eat birds or their eggs or
young. Many birds are destroyed by the elements; they are
starved, frozen and drowned, and their increase is checked so
that commonly in nature but one pair of birds succeeds another.

In the insect world the possibilities of unchecked increase are
still more formidable than among mammals or birds. Huxley
reckons that the young of a certain plant louse, increasing un-
checked, in one year would equal in bulk the entire human
population of the Chinese Empire. Such increases in number,
however, are impossible because of the many forces always
working to check them. Insects in all their forms are killed
and eaten continually by a host of other creatures.

Each animal species while striving mightily to increase its
numbers also works to hold others in check. Forbes likens the
whole system of life with all its interrelations to a series of ex-

panding and contracting springs, each of which in expanding is
checked, pushed back or compressed by others. The moment
one weakens and becomes slightly contracted others expand to
fill the vacancy. When one expands unduly, others exert in-
creased force to contract it again; for example, when locusts
become unduly numerous and devastate the land, practically all
wild beasts and birds neglect other foods and consume locusts
until the latter again become reduced in numbers. All the
forces of Nature are thus balanced one against another. Plants
and trees produce foliage and seed enough to feed all living
animals, some of which take their food direct from plant life,
while others get it wholly or in part at secondhand by devour-
ing insects or other animals which feed on plants.

We may say, then, that in the economy of Nature all species
are useful, since all have their part in preserving that general
balance and stability which works for the good of all life.

The Function of Birds in Nature.

The chief value of birds in the general plan lies in the great
part that they have in maintaining this biologic balance, — a
part that cannot be filled by other creatures. Like many other
organisms they are ordinarily rather impartial of choice regard-
ing food, and they forage wherever and on whatever is best for
the common welfare. Nevertheless, birds exercise some choice
and fill a special place. Their position in one respect is unique.
Their structure fits them to perform a certain function, — that
of a swiftly moving body of police, adapted to sweep rapidly
over the surface of the earth and assemble quickly in hosts
wherever most needed to combat abnormal outbreaks or ir-
ruptions of animal life.

A swarm of grasshoppers appears, and birds from far and
near concentrate upon them. A plague of field mice occurs,
and birds descend upon them from the four quarters of the
land. This facility of movement renders birds serviceable, also,
in clearing the earth of offensive decaying animal matter, for
many are scavengers. Quantities of fish are cast upon the shore,
and thousands of sea birds come sweeping in from wide waters
and far shores to devour them. Vultures gather from afar to

8

destroy the decomposing carcasses of the animals slain by some
pestilence. Birds are particularly fitted to perform such services
in Nature (1) by their wonderful power of flight, (2) by their
remarkable vision, (3) by their great capacity for consuming and
assimilating food, and (4) by their propensity to wander.

Birds excel all other creatures in powers of flight. The arctic
tern migrates annually from the arctic regions to the Antarctic
Ocean. The tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flies from Hudson
Bay to Panama. The semi-annual migrations of birds over the
northern hemisphere enable them to explore every part of each
continent over which they pass, and to exert a periodic re-
pressive influence upon all living creatures on which they feed,
-first in their northern homes, next in migration over the
temperate zone, and last in the southern lands, where they
winter and where they reenforce the numbers of resident birds,
most of which migrate little if at all. The highly developed
flight-powers of birds enable them to overtake and destroy
both winged and wingless creatures amid the foliage of plants,
on the surface of the earth, in the air, and even in and under
the water into which many birds can readily dive and in which
many can both swim and fly. Birds, like insects, can quickly
reach from the air all external parts of plants, and they are
especially formed and adapted for the pursuit of insects.

Birds find distant food mainly by their almost telescopic
sight. Thus warblers high in air discern others far below en-
gaged in the act of feeding, and seeing this they drop from the
sky and join the busy throng. Thus, too, the vulture, floating
-aloft on level pinions, discovers food in the valley below, and
circling downward is seen by others in the distant skies; as
they turn to follow him they also are observed by others still,
and so the tidings spread until at last a great assemblage of
these feathered scavengers concentrates at the fatal spot.

The muscular power exhibited by birds, their high tempera-
ture, the extremely rapid circulation of the blood, and their
remarkable activity compel them to eat a tremendous amount
of food to repair the constant waste of their tissues. The
enormous capacity of birds for assimilating food can be appre-
ciated by those only who have studied the subject. When food
is plentiful birds gorge themselves. So rapid is the digestion of

9

the smaller insectivorous birds that they are able daily to con-
sume and assimilate quantities of insect food enormously be-
yond their apparent capacity.

When one begins to study the food of birds he finds that ex-
ceedingly complex food relations exist between the bird and
the animals and plants on which it feeds. The food preferences
of a bird may produce complicated, far-reaching and unexpected
results. It is not often possible for the investigator who studies
a bird's food to measure fully the effect of its feeding habits.
In ordinary circumstances a tent caterpillar and a climbing cut-
worm both would be considered destructive, as both are known
to consume the foliage of trees, but when we find the climbing
cutworm destroying the living pupae of the tent caterpillar
moth, it seems questionable at first sight whether the bird that
eats both is rendering any valuable service in nature. Likewise,
when we find birds feeding on tiny parasitic insects which kill
injurious insects by living and feeding within their bodies, or
when we see birds destroying the larger predaceous insects
which kill and eat so-called injurious insects, we are inclined to
wonder whether birds when engaged in destroying such bene-
ficial creatures are not themselves injurious.

Let us examine the effect of this practice among birds. First,
it should not be forgotten that the chief function of birds is to
perform their part in holding in check the whole great body of
insect life, and to help in preventing its undue increase. There-
fore, since birds are helping to hold in check all insect life, their
reduction of what we call beneficial insects is a negligible harm,
if they are at the same time reducing in greater measure the
numbers of the far more numerous injurious insects. Man's
own measures to control pests (as by spraying) destroy many
useful parasitic and predaceous insects; but spraying is not
thereby condemned. Under normal conditions birds and other
predatory enemies of insects are of chief importance. Parasitic
insects, though often performing remarkably efficient service,
are ordinarily of secondary value for the following reason:
birds and other predatory enemies of insects destroy their
prey at once, while most parasites allow the insect pests to
continue injurious activity until the latter have nearly or
fully passed their feeding period. The parasite, therefore, in

10

case of an irruption of an insect pest does not usually destroy
the pest until the injury has been done; it only prevents
another generation. Birds and other predatory enemies, on the
other hand, kill the pest at once, and so prevent both imme-
diate and later injury.

Professor F. E. L. Beal, who probably examined the contents
of more birds' stomachs than any other scientist of his time,
says, "That birds are an efficient check upon insect multipli-
cation seems impossible of denial, and it is doubtful if any-
where else in the animal kingdom any other restraining influence
so important can be found." 1

We must understand that birds in Nature are neither mere
beneficent organisms, working solely for the good of the human
race, nor injurious enemies of mankind; but that as a whole
they form a regulative body doing their part in keeping a
wholesome balance amongst the forces of Nature for the benefit
of all. To illustrate in some measure the food relations of birds
and the manner in which food preferences react, the following,
somewhat revised, is taken in substance from my " Useful
Birds and their Protection:" —

Eagles, large hawks and owls feed to some extent on crows,
and probably the nocturnal, tree-climbing, nest-hunting raccoon
also robs crows of eggs and young; otherwise they seem to
have very few natural enemies to check their increase. Crows
feed on so many different forms of animal and vegetable life
that they are nearly always able to find an abundance of
suitable food; therefore they are commonly and widely dis-
tributed.

The general fitness of the crow is admitted by all. Un-
doubtedly it has a useful work to perform in the world. But
a careful study of its food habits shows so many apparently
harmful traits that it may well leave the investigator in some
doubt regarding the crow's value in the general plan. Crows
rob the nests of robins, eating very many eggs and young birds;
therefore they constitute a serious check on the increase of
robins. Robins feed largely on common black beetles, called
ground beetles (Carabidae). As these beetles are not quick to
fly by day and may be easily caught, they form a considerable

1 Beal, F. E. L.: The Relation between Birds and Insects, Yearbook, United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture, 1908, p. 344.

11

A ground beetle
ordinarily useful,
but injurious if in
excessive num-
bers, eaten by the
robin.

part of the food of many ground-frequenting birds. But

ground beetles feed to a greater or less extent on other insects.

The question then arises, is not the robin

doing harm by eating ground beetles, and

does it not merit the destruction of its eggs

and young by the crow? If the robin's habit

of eating these beetles is harmful, is not the

crow rendering a service by destroying a bird

apparently so injurious as the robin? If there

were too many robins might they not eat too

many ground beetles and thus become the in-
direct cause of the destruction of much vegeta-
tion by saving the lives of the caterpillars

and other harmful insects that the ground

beetles, had they been spared, might have

destroyed? 1

Many ground beetles that are eaten by the robin feed much

on vegetable matter.2 This makes these beetles doubly useful

in one respect, for they can main-
tain their numbers when insect food
is not plentiful, and so be ready to
check any increase of insects which
may occur. On the other hand, if
they become too numerous they
may do serious damage by destroy-
ing grass, grain or fruit. I have
witnessed attacks made by certain
of these beetles on grain and straw-
berries, and were they not held in
check by birds they might become
serious pests. Their destruction
by robins and other birds tends

to keep these beetles within those normal bounds where they

1 These questions can be answered only by one having a thorough knowledge of the food of
our ground beetles, — a knowledge which no living man yet possesses; but enough has been
learned to throw some light on their food habits. Insects that feed promiscuously on other insects
are regarded as beneficial in so far as they take insect food, even though they may destroy many
so-called useful insects; for, as the injurious insects far outnumber the useful species, any check
upon the general increase of insect life must result in a balance of good.

1 The predaceous beetles of one genus (Calosoma) and those of some closely allied genera are
exceptions to this rule, and are believed to feed entirely on animal food, as their structureffits
them for that alone. They feed ravenously upon both beneficial and injurious insects, and when
abnormally numerous they devour one another. These beetles, however, are eaten by crows
and probably not by robins.

Calosoma scrutator, useful ground
beetle, eaten by crows.

12

will do the most good and the least harm, while the check
kept by the crow on the increase of the robin may prevent the
latter from destroying too many ground beetles. If certain low-
feeding caterpillars should become so numerous as to be injuri-
ous, ground beetles and robins would feed largely on them. The
caterpillars would then largely take the place of the beetles in
the robin's diet. The beetles therefore would increase in num-
bers, and the force of both bird and beetle would be exerted to
reduce the caterpillars to harmlessness. This accomplished, the
robins would again attack the ground beetles, and thus tend to
reduce them to normal numbers.

Let us now go back to the beginning of our chain of de-
struction. Eagles, hawks, owls and raccoons may indirectly
swell the numbers of the robins by limiting the increase of the
crow. But hawks and owls also prey on the robin, and by
dividing their predatory activities between robin and crow assist
in keeping both birds to their normal numbers. Whenever
crows become rare, robins as a consequence would become very
numerous, were it not that hawks also eat robins. (Hawks and
owls also eat some species of insects that are eaten by both
robin and crow.)

There are compensations in the apparently detrimental career
of the crow. An omnivorous bird, it takes any food that is

Cutworm moth and its caterpillar, eaten by robins, crows and
other birds.

plentiful and easily obtained. It is a great feeder oit May
beetles (miscalled "June bugs"), the larvae of which, known as
white grubs, burrow in the ground and sometimes devastate
grasslands, and also injure the roots of many other plants, in-
cluding trees.

The crow is also a destroyer of cutworms, which are the
young or larvae of noctuid moths or "millers" such as are
commonly seen fluttering from the grass by any one who dis-
turbs them when walking in the fields. Robins also feed

13

largely on cutworms, as well as on the white grubs of the May
beetle. When these insects are few in number, a part of the
usual food supply of both robin and crow is cut off. This being
the case, the hungry crows would be likely to destroy more
young robins and other young birds than usual in order to make
up the supply of animal food for themselves and their ravenous
nestlings. This, again, would decrease perceptibly the number
of robins and other small birds, and would be likely in turn to
allow an increase of May beetles and cutworms. Should these
insects become more plentiful, the crows would naturally turn
again to them, neglecting the young of robins and other birds
for a time, and allowing them to increase once more, until their
multiplication put a check on the insects, when the crows would
of necessity again raid the robins.

The blue jay may be taken as another instance of this means
of preserving the balance of Nature. Hawks and owls kill blue
jays, and crows destroy their eggs and young; thus the blue
jays are kept in check. Jays are omnivorous feeders. They
eat the eggs and young of other birds, particularly those of
warblers, sparrows and vireos, — birds which are active cater-
pillar hunters. But jays themselves are extremely efficient
caterpillar killers. They atone in great measure for destroying
other caterpillar-eating birds when they (the jays) turn to
killing caterpillars which have increased in numbers in conse-
quence of the destruction by jays of eggs and young of smaller
birds. Like the crow, they virtually kill the nestlings of the
smaller birds and eat them that they (the jays) may eventually
have more insect food for their own young. When this object
has been attained the jays may perhaps again allow an increase
of the smaller birds, the survivors of which they have indirectly
furnished with more insect food, thus making conditions favor-
able for their increase. These oscillations, or alternate expan-
sions and contractions, in the numbers of birds or insects often
are so slight as to escape common observation. It is only in
those cases where the alternations are carried to extremes that
they result disastrously. Under Nature the checks on the in-
crease of birds are essential, else birds would multiply until their
food supply became exhausted, when they would starve, and
other consequences much more complex and more serious to
mankind would quickly follow.

14

While the above statement of the way in which the balance
of Nature is preserved may be regarded as somewhat hypo-
thetical, probably it approximates what actually takes place,
although the feeding habits of birds undoubtedly produce far
more complicated and far-reaching results than are outlined
here.

It is a law of Nature that the destroyer is also the preserver.
Birds of prey benefit the species on which they prey in at least
two ways not noted above: (1) the more powerful bird enemies
of a certain bird usually prey also upon some of the weaker
enemies of that bird; (2) these powerful birds also check the
propagation of weakness, disease or unfitness by killing off the
weaker or most unfit individuals among the species on which
they prey, as these are most easily captured.

We have seen already that jays, which are enemies of the
smaller birds, are preyed upon by the more powerful crows,
hawks and owls. These latter also destroy skunks, weasels,
squirrels, mice and snakes, all of which are foes of the smaller
birds. No doubt these animals would be much more destructive
to the smaller birds were they without these wholesome feathered
checks on their increase.

UTILITY OF INSECT-EATING BIEDS.

Practically all birds eat insects, and it is among insects that
we find the most destructive pests known to man. Most plant-
eating insects that live in or about cultivated lands or forests
are potentially injurious. Some when kept normally repressed
by their natural enemies may feed only on noxious plants com-
monly called "weeds," and so may be harmless or even bene-
ficial; but let the checks upon their increase become lessened
in any way, so that their natural food supply becomes insuffi-
cient for their increasing numbers, and they may at once
menace growing crops. Any plant-eating insect that increases
much beyond its normal numbers soon assumes the importance
of a pest, and all insects have this tendency to multiply.

Insect pests are particularly destructive, not only because
of their large numbers but also because of their great con-
sumption of food. A certain maggot consumes in twenty-four

15

hours two hundred times its original weight.1 The food taken
during fifty-six days by a caterpillar of Telea polyphemus equals
in weight eighty-six thousand times the original weight of the
caterpillar when first hatched from the egg. This enormous
voracity accounts for the excessive destructiveness of insects
when in abnormal numbers. It explains in part why the yearly
injury caused by insects to agricultural and forest products in
the United States exceeds $1,000,000,000.

Fortunately the appetites of birds closely match those of in-
sects. A single polyphemus caterpillar may eat 120 oak leaves
during its lifetime. But the birds destroy nearly all these cater-
pillars and so the species rarely becomes numerous enough to
be injurious.2 Samuels says that Trouvelot, to test the effective-
ness of birds, placed 2,000 of the polyphemus caterpillars on a
tree near his door, and in a few days the birds had eaten them
all.3

In 1861 Trouvelot began his attempt to produce silk from
American silkworms. He experimented at Medford, Massa-
chusetts, for several years, and from 1864 to 1870 he raised the
larvae of Telea polyphemus in large numbers. It was about 1869
that, in the course of his importations of European insects for
experimentation, he introduced and accidentally liberated the
gypsy moth which has proven a very destructive and expensive
pest. For six years or more he reared polyphemus caterpillars
in astonishing numbers, having over five acres of shrub oak and
other bushes fenced in and covered with netting for this pur-
pose. He found birds by far "the most formidable enemies of
the caterpillars," and he tells us that birds came from far and
near to destroy them. The smaller birds forced themselves
through the meshes of the net, and the larger ones found holes
through which they were able to enter, and he was " obliged to
chase them all the day long, as when pursuing them on one side
they would fly to the other," and feed until he reappeared.4

Samuels tells us that Trouvelot was obliged to shoot many
birds, especially robins; that he never found any fruit in the

* Lintner, J. A.: Sixteenth Annual Report, New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, 1888-89,
p. 295.

1 Trouvelot, Leopold: The American Silk Worm, American Naturalist, Vol. 1, 1867, pp. 85,
89, 145.

» Samuels, E. A.: Birds of New England, 1870. p. 156.

« Trouvelot, Leopold: American Naturalist, Vol. 1, 1867, pp. 89 and 145.

16

stomachs of these birds, but only insects; and that he con-
cluded that if the birds were killed off all vegetation would be
destroyed by insects.1 Here we have the chief reason why the
huge caterpillars of polyphemus, cecropia and luna moths,
which are capable of doing immense damage, rarely become
numerous enough to be noticeable. When the settlers on our
great western plains first began to plant trees to provide wind-
breaks on the prairies they introduced the eggs or cocoons of
large moths on the young trees. As there were no tree birds
then in the region, the larvse of the larger moths, such as
polyphemus and cecropia, multiplied exceedingly, making it al-
most impossible to grow trees, but as groves and orchards
finally became established, and arboreal birds spread over the
country, nesting and rearing their young in the trees, these
caterpillars were reduced to comparatively harmless numbers.2

Dr. Robert T. Morris of New York City wrote me on Decem-
ber 7, 1917: —

i

My own special hobby is the hybridizing of nut trees upon my country
place at Stamford, Connecticut. In order to do this work I cover branches
carrying pistillate flowers with large paper bags in order to protect the
flowers from any pollen except that which I wish to introduce. These
bags commonly remain in place two or three weeks. The leaves are not
removed from the branches, but are tucked into the paper bags. I found
that under the protection of these bags insects increased to such an extent
that they sometimes destroyed all the leaves, and almost always destroyed
or injured so many of them that the branches which had been covered
stood out distinctly from the rest of the tree all summer long. It was
necessary for me to resort to the plan of dusting the leaves thickly with
Persian insect powder, or spraying them with Pyrox before enclosing them
in the bags.

Of course the bags excluded from the branches so covered not
only birds but other natural enemies of insects. Nevertheless,
any attempt by man to protect or propagate insects for any
purpose soon demonstrates that birds are very potent and per-
sistent enemies of those insects. Mr. E. P. Felt, working under
my direction, in the year 1891, confined numbers of gypsy
moth caterpillars in bags of netting stretched over the limbs of

1 Samuels, E. A.: Birds of New England, 1870, p. 156.

2 Useful Birds and their Protection, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 109,
110.

17

18

apple trees. It was found almost impossible to complete the
experiments, as very many caterpillars were taken from the nets
by birds. I saw a chipping sparrow break through the nets and
secure a large caterpillar. More than 50 species of birds feed
on such hairy larvae, and Mr. Felt noted that 60 per cent of
the caterpillars used in these experiments were taken by birds
which broke into the nets.1

Quantity of Insects eaten by Young Birds.

Fortunately the young of insectivorous birds grow almost as
rapidly as many of the insects on which they feed. Most of
the young of the smaller birds are well grown and able to fly
in from one to three weeks after they leave the egg. This rapid
growth calls for a tremendous amount of animal food. A
young robin fed by Professor D. Treadwell made no gain in
weight until the fourteenth day, when it received 68 angle-
worms. Later the same bird consumed in a day nearly one-half
its own weight of beef. A young man eating at this rate would
consume about 70 pounds of steak daily.2

Mr. C. W. Nash fed a young robin daily for fifteen days from
50 to 70 cutworms or earthworms. By experiment he found
that it would eat 165 cutworms in a day.3

Mr. A. H. Kirkland kept and fed some young crows. His
records show that on less than 8 ounces of food daily one bird
tended to lose in weight, and only when the food was increased
to 10 ounces was there a marked tendency toward a daily gain.
The digestion of many young birds is so rapid that the stomach
is emptied of food in from twenty minutes to two hours, ac-
cording to the character of the food eaten.

Mr. F. H. Mosher watched two red-eyed vireos feeding young,
and found that in ten hours the parents together brought food to
the nest one hundred and twenty-five times.4

Professor Aughey states that during a locust year in Nebraska
he saw a pair of long-billed marsh wrens in an hour take 31

1 Forbush, E. H., and Fernald, C. H.: The Gypsy Moth, Massachusetts State Board of Agri-
culture, 1896, pp. 215, 216.

2 Treadwell, D.: Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol.6, pp. 396-399.
* Birds of Ontario in their Relation to Agriculture, Ontario Department of Agriculture, Bul-
letin No. 218, p. 64.

« Useful Birds and their Protection, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 45-52,

19

small locusts to their young, and a pair of rock wrens took in
another hour 32 locusts to their nest.1

Dr. C. M. Weed and Mr. W. S. Fiske watched the nest of a
chipping sparrow from 3.40 A.M. to 7.49 P.M.2 The birds made
almost 200 trips to the nest in that time. They were busy
from daylight to dark, and the food so far as identified con-
sisted largely of caterpillars.

Quantity of Insect Food required by Adult Birds.

The constant activity of adult birds is such that they require
an enormous quantity of food to repair the waste of the tissues.
Mr. Robert Ridgway fed a pet Arkansas kingbird 120 grass-
hoppers in a single day.3 Those who examine the contents of
birds' stomachs find in them the remains of astonishing num-
bers of insects. Professor Beal says that oftentimes when a
stomach has been opened and the contents placed in a pile, the
heap expands until it becomes two or three times as large as
the stomach was originally with all the food in it. He found
in the stomach of a yellow-billed cuckoo remains of 217 fall
webworms, and in another, 250 tent caterpillars. Sixty grass-
hoppers were found in the stomach of a nighthawk. Professor
Harvey told me that he took 500 mosquitoes from another
nighthawk's stomach. Dr. Judd says that the stomachs of four
bank swallows contained 200 ants, and that a nighthawk has
been known to eat 1,000 at a single meal. In the stomach of a
Franklin's gull there were 70 entire grasshoppers and the jaws
of 56 more; in another, 90 grasshoppers and 102 additional
jaws; in another, 48 grasshoppers and 70 jaws.4

Some estimates of the quantities of insects eaten by birds in
different States of the Union have been made, and as the
figures are very conservative the results in brief are given
below. The birds of Massachusetts destroy 21,000 bushels of
insects daily (estimated) (Reed); the birds of Pennsylvania,
2,880,000,000 insects daily (Kalbfus); and the birds of
Nebraska, 170 carloads each day (Bruner). These figures may

1 Aughey, S. A.: Notes on the Nature of the Food of Nebraska Birds, First Report of the
United States Entomological Commission, 1877, Appendix, p. 18.
1 Bulletin No. 55, New Hampshire College Agricultural Experiment Station, 1898.
« American Naturalist, Vol. Ill, 1869, p. 310.
• Useful Birds and their Protection, 1907, pp. 57-61.

20

serve to give some idea of the great influence that birds exert
on the prevalence of insect life.

The remarkable appetites of birds serve to make them sig-
nally useful when they destroy our insect enemies, but pro-
portionately harmful when they feed on grain, fruit or other
crops. The chief crop injuries attributable to birds occur
when, during migration, birds gather excessively in one locality.
To utilize in full the services of birds, and to minimize the
losses that they cause, we should adopt toward them the policy
of the natives of India, who refrain from killing birds, but use
ingenious devices to frighten them away from fields of ripening
grain. It may be necessary at times to kill birds to protect
crops or poultry, but such birds in New England as are com-
monly more injurious than beneficial may be counted on the
fingers of one hand.

Crops and Trees saved from Destruction by Birds.

The principal service of birds to agriculture consists in the
prominent part that they play perennially in the control of in-
sect pests. Modern agriculture, both intensive and extensive,
produces great crops of the same food plants year after year on
the same or contiguous tracts, thus occasioning an excessive mul-
tiplication of the insects that feed on those crops. Other crop-
destroying insects are introduced from foreign lands. Mean-
while the birds that feed upon them are destroyed by farmers,
gunners, boys, cats, dogs and other enemies or agencies intro-
duced by man, while their nesting places are broken up and
their natural food plants destroyed by the operations of agri-
culture. Under these circumstances we need not wonder that
the numbers of birds often are insufficient fully to copt with
our greatly increased insect enemies; or that, deprived of their
natural food, birds attack grain or fruit. Frequently it becomes
very evident that birds are not sufficiently numerous to keep
insect pests in check. Nevertheless, they suppress insect out-
breaks more often than is generally known. By increasing their
numbers we may render them still more effective.

In presenting the following accounts of the suppression of
insect invasions by birds, one cannot always guarantee the

21

accuracy of the observations recorded, but the testimony is
taken from what seem to be reliable sources.

Among the Orthoptera, which includes the grasshoppers and
crickets, farmers will recognize some of the most destructive
insects of the fields. Practically all birds feed on grasshoppers
and locusts, and many on crickets, and it is largely due to this
habit that these insects are not oftener seriously destructive.
There is an historical occurrence regarding the early settlement
of Utah by the Mormons which illustrates the value of birds as
destroyers of Orthoptera. When the Mormons established their
earliest settlement in Utah, their first crops were almost de-
stroyed by myriads of black crickets, so called, that came
down from the mountains. These orthopterous insects have
been identified as the so-called "western cricket" (Anabrm pur-

THE "WESTERN CRICKET."

Its hordes, while devastating the crops of the Mormon settlers, were in turn
destroyed by gulls.

purascens). The crops of the first year having been destroyed,
the Mormons were in severe straits, but they had seed to sow
for the second year. The grain promised well, but again the
crickets appeared, coming down from the mountains in swarms.
The Honorable Geo. Q. Cannon stated that they came down
by millions and destroyed the grain crops. Promising fields of
wheat were cut down to the ground in a single day. The
people were in despair. Then sea gulls came by hundreds and
thousands, and, before the grain could be entirely destroyed,
devoured the insects, so that the fields were freed from them.1

i See Irrigation Age, 1894, p. 188; Insect Life, Vol. VTI, p. 275; Annual Report, Massachusetts
State Board of Agriculture, 1871, p. 76; Annual Report, United States Commissioner of Agri-
culture, 1871, p. 79; and Second Annual Report, United States Entomological Commission,
1878-79, p. 166.

22

The settlers regarded this as a heaven-sent miracle, and there
stands to-day at Salt Lake City a monument costing $40,000 to
commemorate the event. (See frontispiece.)

Among the most persistent enemies of grasshoppers we must
count crows. There was a tremendous outbreak of these insects
in Australia in the spring of 1894. Dr. N. A. Cobb of the De-
partment of Agriculture, Sydney, New South Wales, tells of the
immense good done by crows in the Mossvale district in de-
stroying the pest. For weeks crows were very abundant
throughout this region. Dr. Cobb made an effort to estimate
the number. Armed with a telescope he mounted one of the
highest hills and found that the crows were about equally dis-
tributed over the land. He estimated that the Mossvale dis-
trict at that time was supporting not less than one-quarter of a
million crows, and it was his belief that the actual number was
much greater than this estimate. He found that the crows were
feeding almost entirely on grasshoppers. By examining a large
number of stomachs he became satisfied that each crow's
stomach contained at that time nearly if not quite 100 grass-
hoppers. He assumed that the stomach of each crow was filled
twice a day. (Any one who has ever attempted to keep a crow
from starvation will realize that this was a very moderate esti-
mate, and that a crow receiving only two such meals a day
would soon become very attenuated.) He figured that the
crows in that district were destroying daily a total of 25,000,000
grasshoppers, and as this crow invasion lasted for a month he
put the total number of grasshoppers destroyed in the district
at 750,000,000. This number reduced to tons would give a
total weight of 100 tons of grasshoppers. But he said that even
this figure failed to give a clear idea of the good work done by
these crows. By careful computation he arrived at thi con-
clusion that these 750,000,000 grasshoppers if not killed by the
crows would have consumed over 2,000 tons of grass and other
fodder. He thus came to the conclusion that through this
destruction of grasshoppers the crows saved thousands of tons
of grass and other products to the inhabitants of the Mossvale
district. He says, also, that a significant feature of the locust
plague in 1891 in the western part of New South Wales was the

1

TABLETS TO THE SEA GULLS.

On the monument erected by the grateful people of Salt Lake City to commemorate the advent
of the gulls that by destroying the crickets saved the first settlers from starvation. (From
Bird-Lore. )

23

presence of large flocks of these black police in parts of the in-
fested districts.1

The Australian correspondence of the Mark Lane Express of
March 7, 1892, speaks of the value to the farmers of ibises and
other birds during the locust invasions of that year in the Glen
Thompson district near Ballarat, Victoria. A swarm of locusts
was noted in a paddock, and when it was feared that all the
sheep would have to be sold for lack of grass, flocks of starlings,
spoonbills and cranes appeared and destroyed the locusts so
completely that only about 40 acres of grassland were ravaged.2

Similar services were performed by birds in the western
United States during the great locust visitations that followed
the settlement of the States in the Mississippi valley. When
these tremendous irruptions of locusts appeared, practically all
birds, from the tiny kinglet to the great whooping crane, fed
upon them. Professor Samuel Aughey, who investigated the
food of these locust-eating birds, noted many localities where
the crops (or a part, at least) were saved by the work of flocks
of birds which gathered there to feed on the locusts. Birds
were effective even where, as in one case, the locusts had
hatched to the number of 300 to the square foot. In 1869, in
one instance, more than 90 per cent of the insects were de-
stroyed by birds. At Fremont, Nebraska, S. E. Goodman found
that the locusts came up "much thicker" than the wheat, but
he said that the birds reduced them so that he got two-thirds
of a crop, and he asserted that other farmers had a similar ex-
perience. In some cases the sprouting wheat was eaten clean
to the ground, but flocks of blackbirds came, destroyed the
locusts, and the wheat sprang up again and made a good crop.
Page after page of the first report of the United States Entomo-
logical Commission was devoted to testimony of this kind.

The commissioners themselves say that "the ocular demon-
stration of the usefulness of birds was so full and complete
during the past year that it was impossible to entertain any
longer a doubt upon this point."3

1 Cobb, N. A.: The Common Crow, Miscellaneous Publication No. 103, Department of Agri-
culture, New South Wales, 1896, pp. 10-12.

* Insect Life, Vol. IV, 1891-92, p. 409.

» Riley, Packard and Thomas: First Report, United States Entomological Commission, 1877.
pp. 335-342.

24

In 1919 the State of Washington, with the aid of agents of
the United States Department of Agriculture, attempted the
control of the coulee cricket which had devastated large areas
in the vicinity of Adrian, Washington. According to Mr. Max
Reeher, scientific assistant in the Bureau of Entomology, United
States Department of Agriculture, western meadowlarks ap-
peared in great numbers in the dry coulee in autumn, and began
eating the newly hatched crickets. These birds were so effective
in controlling the pest that all arrangements for a 1919 control
campaign were abandoned. It is said that "the meadowlarks
were almost entirely responsible for the complete clean-up of
the area." 1

The "seventeen-year locust," so-called ( Tibicina septendecem) >
is not a locust, but belongs to the order Homoptera, containing
cicadas, plant lice and scale insects. The destructive cicadas
live most of their lives underground, where they feed on roots.
They are attacked by many birds when they appear above the
surface of the earth. Dr. J. B. Smith says that wherever the
English sparrow has been introduced, the periodical cicada is
doomed. He says that these birds seem to have an intense
hatred for this insect, attacking it and pulling it to pieces in
the most wanton manner, and near the large cities where these
sparrows are numerous entire broods of the cicada have already
disappeared. He asserts that in 1889 these insects appeared in
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York, and in the surrounding
woodland, but during a day's careful search he found only a
single branch containing their eggs.2

Broods of this cicada that were due to appear in certain
localities the past season (1920) failed to materialize; perhaps
Dr. Smith's account explains why. Grackles also sometimes
become very destructive to the periodical cicada. Mr. C. L.
Marlatt, who was breeding these insects experimentally, says
that under one tree a count and estimate was made of more
than 5,000 openings from which the insects had emerged, and
under other trees the openings ranged from a few hundred to
3,000. Notwithstanding the considerable numbers of cicadas
which emerged, not one was seen on the trees during theMays

1 Burrill, A. C.: California Fish and Game, Vol. 6, No. 1, January, 1920, p. 38.
1 Smith, J. B.: Economic Entomology, 1896, pp. 142, 143.

25

and weeks following. Each morning under these trees a con-
siderable group of blackbirds could be seen which evidently had
been feeding on the newly issued cicadas. Scarcely a single
cicada escaped the sharp eyes of these birds. He says that the
absolute failure of these insects to establish themselves when
planted in such enormous numbers, even when the underground
period had been successfully passed, owing to the relentless on-
slaught of birds, is a striking illustration of what is happening
year after year with successive broods, especially in thinly
forested regions, and accounts for their great reduction in
number and the practical disappearance of local swarms for-
merly abundant.1

Birds sometimes clear plants and trees of insect pests before
the presence of these pests has been brought to our notice. In
November, 1905, on returning to Wareham after a long absence,
I noted a flock of myrtle warblers and some goldfinches that
were very busy among the apple trees, and w^ere searching with
particular diligence a pear tree near the house. I was told that
they had been at that occupation for about two weeks. I
realized at once that they must have been engaged upon those
leafless trees in the suppression of some insect pest. A careful
examination revealed the fact that the birds were working the
trees thus carefully for little cicada-shaped insects, which were
identified by Dr. L. O. Howard as the pear tree psylla (Psylla
pyri), a European pest introduced into this country. These
insects are extremely destructive to pear trees. Devastating
invasions have occurred in Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey.
These jumping plant lice are extremely prolific, having several
broods each year. In the infested Maryland orchards the
leaves and fruit fell, the latter before it was half grown. Enor-
mous secretions of honeydew that the hosts of these insects
produced from the sap of the trees fell like rain, drenching the
horses used in cultivating the orchard, and running down the
trunks in streams. On my farm, however, the birds which had
been engaged for two weeks in clearing these insects from the
pear trees had been so successful that it was difficult for me to
find any of the insects on the trees, and in a few days I could
not discover even a single specimen. But even after that the

1 Proceedings, Entomological Society of Washington [District of Columbia], Vol. IX, 1907,
p. 18.

26

birds looked over the trees occasionally and still found a few.
By the end of another week they had exhausted the supply, and
we never have been able to find a single specimen of these
psyllas since. Dr. Howard intimates in a bulletin on this
insect that the causes which control the increase and decrease
in numbers are not fully understood. The birds constitute one
agency of control that we can understand.1

Professor H. A. Surface reports that Mr. Mann, a well-known
pear grower near Rochester, New York, told him that one year
the pear tree psylla had destroyed his entire pear crop, amount-
ing to thousands of dollars in value, and that in the autumn
the eggs of the insects were so numerous that there seemed to
be no prospect of a crop the following year, but during the
winter white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatches worked in

flocks in this orchard, with the
result that in the spring Mr.
Mann could hardly find an
insect. Professor Surface asserts
that these birds saved Mr. Mann
thousands of dollars in that one
winter.2

One morning in the autumn
of 1904 I saw in some poplar

The red-breasted nuthatch; one of the trees near the shore of the MuS-

species that saved a pear grower thou- ketaquid River, ConCOrd, MaS-
sands of dollars in one winter by

destroying eggs of the pear tree SachusettS, a flock of myrtle

warblers and black-poll warblers

attacking a swarm of plant lice. The insects appeared in
myriads; there were so many that it was impossible for me to
estimate their numbers. They were mainly in the perfect
form, and some of them were in flight. The birds pursued these
through the air, but also sought those that remained on the
trunks and branches. I watched the operations of these birds
at intervals all day. Toward night some of the insects had
scattered to neighboring trees, and a few of the birds were pur-
suing them there; but most of the latter remained all day
about the place where the swarm was first seen. Hour after

1 Useful Birds and their Protection, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 153, 154.

2 Surface, H. A.: Zodlogical Quarterly Bulletin, Division of Zoology, Pennsylvania Depart-
ment of Agriculture, Vol. 1, No. 3, November 15, 1903, p. 31.

27

hour the insects decreased rapidly, until just before sunset it
was difficult to find any of them. But the birds remaining
until nearly dark seemed still to find a few insects on the
higher branches. The insects which I secured for identification
were liberated or destroyed during the night, probably by white-
footed mice which infested the camp. The next morning at
sunrise I was unable, after a very careful search, to find a single
plant louse on the trees. The birds, however, were still there.
They disappeared one by one, but the last bird to linger was
more successful than I, for it still found a few, but soon gave
up the attempt and left for more fruitful fields. A few insects
might have escaped by flight, but the next year I was unable
to find a single specimen in the locality. This apparently com-
plete destruction of these insects may have been due in some
part to the cold of the winter of 1904-05, but the work of the
birds was very thorough.1

In the year 1900 the introduced destructive pea louse (Macro-
siphum pisi) was very prevalent, and was abundant on my farm
at Wareham. We expected it to appear in the spring of 1901.
The insect came as expected, but failed to increase as it had dur-
ing the previous season. We found that chipping sparrows were
eating them, and for two years these birds came wherever peas
were planted and fed on the insects day after day so long as
any could be found. A row of late peas 100 yards in length,
an eighth of a mile from where the early peas were planted,
became infested with these aphides in August, but the chipping
sparrows soon found them and haunted the vines day after day
until the insects became so reduced in numbers as to cause no
further injury.2 Probably this habit of the chippy was wide-
spread, for Mr. H. W. Olds and Dr. Judd both have observed it.3

Every farmer knows that some of the greatest pests of the
farm are found among the Coleoptera, or beetles. The leaf-
eating beetles are among the most destructive, and of these
perhaps the most notorious American species is the Colorado
potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) . Every year the
farmers of the United States spend an enormous sum for labor

1 Useful Birds and their Protection, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 70-72.

» Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, Economic Ornithology Bulletin No. 4, 1920, pp.
28, 29.

• Bulletin No. 15, Division of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture
1901, p. 77.

28

and insecticides to check this beetle, and every year, notwith-
standing this great expense, it does considerable damage to the
potato crop. Several kinds of birds destroy this insect, and a
few species in particular are known to be very effective. Pro-
fessor Beal gives a striking instance of the effect produced upon
this pest by the rose-breasted grosbeak. A small potato field
had been so badly infested with the beetles that the vines were
completely riddled. Rose-breasted grosbeaks visited that field
every day, and finally brought their fledged young to the top-
most rail of the fence and fed them there with the beetles as
they were gathered from the plants. On a careful inspection a
few days later not a single beetle or larva could be found. The
birds had cleared the field and saved the potatoes.1 Many
similar instances have been reported.

Early in the last decade Dr. Thomas E. Miller, then president
of the State negro college at Orangeburg, South Carolina, told
Mr. James Henry Rice, Jr., then chief game warden of that
State, that he had no trouble with potato beetles. Investiga-
tion revealed the fact that bobwhites were abundant around his
fields, where no shooting was allowed. His fields had been prac-
tically free from the beetles for years, while in the same county
and in adjoining counties where birds were shot off it was neces-
sary to make war on these beetles from the beginning to the end
of the potato season. Four years later Mr. Rice himself planted
potatoes in a field of 20 acres where for two years previously all
shooting had been prohibited by a land company that had
bought the tract. Mr. Rice allowed no shotgun to be carried
on the place. Six coveys of bobwhites came into the field to
feed. The potatoes were not sprayed, as it was impossible at
the right time to get help to do the work. Paris green and
lime were applied once, but the young man in charge wate taken
ill and the insecticide was washed off immediately by heavy
rains. The beetles swarmed into the field. Mr. Rice watched
them and saw the bobwhites eating both beetles and larvae, and
clearing the rows. The field was left to the birds and suffered
no appreciable injury from the beetles. In 1915 I had a similar
experience at my farm with a small patch of potatoes and a
flock of bobwhites.

i United States Department of Agriculture, Farmers Bulletin No. 54, 1904, p. 29.

CRANBERRY PLANTS SAVED BY ROBINS.

The first setting was destroyed by white grubs, but robins dug out the grubs and the
second setting was almost uninjured.

29

The imported elm-leaf beetle (Galerucdla luteold) has de-
stroyed many elms in New England. In recent years, however,
it has not been so destructive as formerly. One reason for this
may be found in the fact that cedar waxwings have become a
notable enemy of the beetle. Mr. Outram Bangs gives an
instance where, in Wareham, Massachusetts, these birds saved
about 20 elm trees from destruction by these beetles. About
the year 1904, when the trees were 15 to 20 feet in height, they
were badly infested, but waxwings came regularly to the trees
in constantly increasing numbers, searching every limb and
twig. They often hung from the ends of the boughs, like chick-
adees, spying out the insects until they cleared them off. The
trees were not afterwards troubled.1

Mr. J. M. Van Huyck informed me that in 1911 cedar wax-
wings appeared in flocks on the elm trees of Lee, Massachu-
setts, and in some cases absolutely cleared the trees of this pest.2

In 1915 Mr. J. M. Stone of Greenwich, Massachusetts, wrote
that cedar waxwings had cut down the elm-leaf beetle to a con-
siderable extent, and that he had seen them preying on the
beetles by hundreds; that sometimes 20 or 30 birds alighted on
a single limb, staying there five or ten minutes, and they were
continually going through the trees taking the beetles from both
limbs and leaves.3

Dr. S. D. Judd recorded the reduction by birds of an out-
break of locust-leaf miners at Marshall Hall, Maryland. He
asserted that this beetle (Odontota dorsalis) became so abundant
that it turned the green of the locust trees into an unsightly
brown. Practically all the birds ate these beetles freely, and
aided by their united attack in reducing the numbers of the
insects to such an extent that they did not appear subsequently
in sufficient force to repeat the damage.4

In the year 1914, on my farm at Wareham, a part of a
newly set cranberry bog was attacked by white grubs of the
May beetle and nearly every plant was killed. This grub

1 First Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1908, p. 13.

* Fourth Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1911, p. 19.

» Eighth Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1915, p. 27.

« Bulletin No. 15, Division of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture,
1901, p. 35.

30

remains in the soil destroying the roots of plants for several
seasons, and usually is killed on cranberry bogs by flooding
with water. In this case it was impracticable to flood the
bog during the summer. In May, 1915, after new vines had
been set, numbers of robins were seen at work upon the tract.
They dug into the sand with their beaks and pulled out the
grubs. In a very few cases the roots of the vines were cut off
by the grubs, and these vines the robins pulled up and dis-
carded, but dug out the insects. The birds worked so diligently
that practically no grubs escaped. A few came to maturity and
emerged from the sand as beetles and disappeared, but ap-
parently the birds got all the rest. As a result the new vines
nearly all survived. No other bird except the robin was seen
to attack these grubs, although others may have done so.1

Butterflies and moths are not usually destructive; some of
them do not feed at all in their perfect state, but the larvse or
caterpillars of most species feed on the foliage or other parts of
trees or plants. Many of these larvse may be ranked among the
most destructive pests. The caterpillars and pupae are eaten
by many birds. Many caterpillars are armed with spines or
stiff hairs, and these species are not usually eaten by birds in
such numbers as are those that are not so protected. Never-
theless, many birds feed more or less on hairy caterpillars. Re-
garding this habit of the blue jay, Mr. J. B. Kirtland avers
that in Cleveland, Ohio, he noticed one of these birds engaged
in tearing open the web of the tent caterpillar (Clisiocampa
Americana). This seemed so unusual that he was led to watch
the proceedings of the jays, and in so doing found that before
the young birds had passed from the care of the parents most
of the caterpillar nests had been broken into, many were torn
into shreds, and the number of occupants evidently diminished.
Within two or three years not a caterpillar was to be seen in
the neighborhood.2 Wilson Flagg was one of the first to report
similar habits of the Baltimore oriole.3

A correspondent from Rockville, Connecticut, contributes an
item regarding the Baltimore oriole as an enemy of the tent

1 Eighth Annual Report, State Ornithologist, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1915, pp. 26, 27.

* Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 25, 1870, pp. 483, 484.

» Annual Report, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1861 (1862), Abstract, p. 50.

31

caterpillar. A friend noticed a large caterpillar's nest at the
top of a tree in his apple orchard, and while wondering how it
could be reached he saw that an oriole had flown into the tree
and had gone at once to the nest which it soon tore open with
its bill and then proceeded to devour the occupants. It flew
away, but returned speedily with its mate, when the two con-
tined to feast upon the caterpillars until apparently not a
single one was left.1

For five years my own orchard was kept practically free of
caterpillars by birds. In the spring of 1905 there were two
nests which appeared to have escaped the attacks of birds, and
one day I concluded to remove them, but was called to lunch
and left the trees for half an hour. Upon my return the largest
tent had been torn open and many dead caterpillars were
scattered about mutilated in the manner characteristic of the
Baltimore oriole. Several large holes in the web showed how
they had been extracted. Many caterpillars were lying dead
upon the ground. The tents were left to the tender mercy of
the birds, and the occupants were destroyed by them.2 Many
people have observed this habit of the Baltimore oriole.

Mr. A. W. Butler, in speaking of the yellow-billed cuckoo,
says that he has known it to destroy every tent caterpillar in a
badly infested orchard, and tear up all the nests in half a
day.3

Mr. Harry G. Higbee, superintendent of the Bird Sanctuary
of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, at Sharon, Massachu-
setts, wrote on May 31, 1919, that many nests of tent cater-
pillars had been noted there early in the season. But he had
watched cuckoos puncturing them and eating the caterpillars.
Cuckoos had been so numerous there that the injury by this
caterpillar had practically ceased.

Mr. Henry H. Seaver of Templeton, Massachusetts, asserts
that a family of starlings which had built a nest in the wain-
scoting of a room in his house destroyed a small colony of the
destructive introduced brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea.)
The starlings found an entrance to the house through a waste-

i Cultivator and Country Gentleman, Vol. XLIV, 1879, p. 407.

» Useful Birds and their Protection, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 117,
118.
1 Report, Indiana Department of Geology, Natural Resources of Indiana, 1897 (1898), p. 824.

32

pipe hole, built their nest and laid their eggs in the space be-
tween the outer boarding and the wainscoting. When the
young were hatched it was noted that the parent birds were
bringing caterpillars of the brown-tail moth and the gypsy
moth to their young. There were no such caterpillars in the
immediate vicinity of the house, so the birds were watched and
were seen to bring them from an ancient apple tree in a pasture
some distance away. They practically cleared this tree of these
destructive insects before their food campaign for their family
was over.1

Dr. Walter E. Collinge, the eminent British economic orni-
thologist, writing of the caterpillar of the currant or magpie
moth, asserts that it requires about 170 of these to weigh an
ounce. In their early stages about 200 will aggregate that
weight. He says that he has seen currant plantations infested
with them, and by counting the number to a bush has estimated
nearly 1,000,000 to a plantation, or a total of 2^ hundred-
weight. Had such a horde been left undisturbed they would
quickly have consumed all the foliage and ruined the crop, but
thanks to the birds that attacked them they were reduced to
innocuous numbers long before they had an opportunity of
devastating the plantation.2

The forest tent caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria), a first-class
forest pest, is eaten by many birds. Miss Mary B. Sherman
of Ogdensburg, New York, wrote on May 18, 1900, that the
town was then full of birds, and they were doing good work
feeding on the forest tent caterpillar. She noted sparrows,
warblers, cuckoos, robins and cedar waxwings attacking these
larvae. On May 26 she wrote that there were practically no
caterpillars left. They hatched in large numbers, but cold
weather evidently killed many, and the birds appeared to have
destroyed the remainder.3

Even the very hairy tussock-moth caterpillar (Hemerocampa
leucostigma) has a number of bird enemies. Dr. Sterling of
Cleveland, Ohio, said that in the summer of 1880 the elms along
Euclid Avenue in his vicinity were attacked by these cater-
pillars. Thousands were destroyed by the people in the

1 Bulletin, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Vol. I, No. 9, January, 1918, p. 7.

* Agricultural Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 7, May, 1919, p. 126.

3 Felt, E. P.: Sixteenth Annual Report, New York State Entomologist, 1901, p. 1019.

33

neighborhood, but when winter set in tens of thousands still
remained on the outer branches beyond reach. About Decem-
ber 1 a pair of hairy woodpeckers came and fed daily on the
pupse. In the course of that month and the next, over a
dozen more of the birds appeared, and their industry in regard
to this particular pest attracted the attention of passersby.
When March came round not a cocoon was to be seen in places
where the branches had been literally white with them, — and
this was the last that was seen of the pest.1

Mr. A. W. Anthony asserts that in southern California the
passion vine is infested by a red butterfly (Agraulis vanilla),
the larvae of which feed extensively upon this plant. The plants
are often completely defoliated, and become so unsightly that
in some regions many people have destroyed their vines and
replaced them with others less liable to breed a horde of pests.
Mr. Anthony says that he called on a friend living in the
suburbs of San Diego, who had a large number of unusually
thrifty passion vines climbing over his fence. Upon inquiring
the reason of their freedom from the inevitable pest he was in-
formed that a pair of road runners had paid daily visits to
these vines for several months, climbing through them in all
directions until they had captured the last caterpillar.2

The destruction of hairy caterpillars by birds is considerable,
but instances where they have killed out hairless caterpillars
probably are much more numerous. The late E. W. Wood of
Newton, Massachusetts, formerly a well-known member of the
Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, informed me that
during a season when spring cankerworms (Anisopteryx vernatd)
became quite numerous in his orchard, a pair of Baltimore
orioles fed daily on the worms, meantime building a nest near
by. When the young were hatched the parents redoubled their
diligence, sometimes carrying ten or more worms to their nest
at one time. Soon the cankerworms in that orchard had dis-
appeared. The foliage and fruit were saved for that year,
and for several succeeding years no noticeable damage was
done.3

Cedar waxwings are very destructive to canker worms, and,

i Sterling, E.: Insect Life, Vol. Ill, 1891, p. 295.

* Auk, Vol. XIV, 1897, p. 217.

» Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, Crop Report, Bulletin V, 1894, p. 30.

34

in fact, most birds feed on them. Several years ago I noted a
serious infestation of this pest in an orchard in Westborough,
Massachusetts, that finally was nearly cleared up by birds,
prominent among which were flocks of cedar waxwings which
spent a great part of the daylight hours feeding on these cater-
pillars.

Other hairless caterpillars taken by birds are cabbage worms
and climbing cutworms. The chipping sparrow and the song
sparrow have been noted frequently as enemies of the cabbage
worm (Pontia rapes). Dr. S. Schneck says that he was observ-
ing the cabbage patch early in the morning, from daybreak to
a short time after sunrise, when he chanced to see a number of
chipping sparrows taking cabbage worms. By continuing his
observations he found that they kept up this practice every
morning so long as the worms lasted.1 In 1901 I had a similar
experience with both chipping sparrows and song sparrows.2

Mr. J. B. Dunn of Corpus Christi, Texas, reports a bird
enemy of the cabbage looper (Autographa brassicce). He is
quoted by Dr. F. H. Chittenden of the Bureau of Entomology
to the effect that ua bird known locally as jackdaw (Megaquisca-
lus major) [probably the great-tailed grackle] was particularly
fond of these cabbage loopers." These birds alighted in the
fields and fed on the larvse daily until they cleaned them up
and saved the crop.3

Mr. J. L. Harris reports that another cabbage pest, the
diamond-back moth (Plutella maculipennis) was extirpated from
his patch by a flock of blackbirds.4

The larva of the snow-white linden moth (Ennomos sub-
signarius) no doubt is eaten by many native birds, but perhaps,
owing to a scarcity of native birds in the seventh decads of the
last century, it became a great pest in many cities of the
eastern United States. This worm seems to be the special
prey of the English sparrow. A. R. Grote, the well-known
entomologist, wrote in 1883, "Many will recollect that the
maple and other shade trees in Brooklyn and New York used
to be completely defoliated by the middle of summer by the

i American Naturalist, Vol. XIV, February, 1880, p. 130.

* Economic Ornithology, Bulletin No. 4, Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, 1920,
pp. 29, 30.

» Bulletin No. 33, Division of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, 1902,
p. 68.

« Transactions, Minnesota State Horticultural Society, January, 1878, p. 63.

35

common brown drop or measuring worm. . . . The English
sparrow rid us of this nuisance; it ate every one of them." *

Dr. John B. Smith, entomologist of the New Jersey Experi-
ment Station, wrote as follows regarding this habit of the house
sparrow : —

On the evening of July 17 (1908), Newark, Elizabeth, Paterson, Jersey
City and some of the surrounding towns were treated to a unique experi-
ence — a veritable swarm of snow-white moths flying around the electric
lights and giving the appearance of a snowstorm in midsummer. ... On
the morning after the flight the sparrows apparently became very busy
soon after daylight, and all that was left to mark it was numerous quan-
tities of wings without bodies. . . . This flight was composed of indi-
viduals of the snow-white Eugonia, known everywhere half a century ago
as the parent of the ' ' span worm " . It was at that time the most abundant
and destructive shade-tree insect in the eastern United States, and its
caterpillars, feeding upon most of the shade trees, were a nuisance by their
habit of suspending themselves by threads from the foliage upon which
they fed, and dropping upon pedestrians moving beneath.2

The sparrows were introduced into this country to protect
street trees and park trees from these caterpillars. They did
their work well. It was not long before the caterpillars practi-
cally disappeared from the cities. Unfortunately, however, the
sparrows, by driving out the native birds, brought about an
increase of tussock moths, which for several years ravaged
many street and park trees.

The pupae of the codling moth are eaten by many birds.
These moths spin cocoons beneath scales of bark on the trunks
and large limbs of apple trees, where they are attacked, par-
ticularly during winter, by woodpeckers and titmouses. Mr.
A. P. Martin of Petaluma, California, believed that there the
destruction of this apple-tree pest was attributable to the red-
shafted flicker. He said that in examining the crevices of the
bark for codling moths in the spring he failed to find any, where
there had been thousands in the fall. Upon investigation he
found numbers of cocoons, but in every case the occupant of the
cocoon was absent. In the scales of bark over each cocoon he
found small holes where the pupse had been drawn out. He
noticed large numbers of flickers in the orchards during the
early spring months industriously examining the trunks and

» Canadian Entomologist, Vol. XV, 1883, p. 235.

» Report, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, 1908, pp. 317, 318.

36

large limbs of the fruit trees, and suspected at the time that
they were in search of apple worms. He noticed, also, that
these birds were busy around the sheds where he had stored his
winter apples and pears, and that they got every worm that
they could reach, even pecking holes deeply in the wood where
there were cocoons in nail holes or crevices in the boards. As
a result of several hours' search (at various times), before the
time for the moths to emerge, he found only one worm, and
that one had barely escaped, for others had been taken out
within a quarter of an inch of its hiding place.1

In some localities the downy woodpecker is very destructive
to the larvae of the codling moth. Dr. Rufus H. Pettit, ento-
mologist to the Michigan Experiment Station, records that in
almost every case where cocoons of this insect were concealed
under flakes of bark the birds had found them.2 It is interest-
ing to note, also, that several observers have seen this wood-
pecker extract the young apple worms from the calyx end of
the fruit without any appreciable injury to the apple.

The following is a translation from Bernard Altum, showing
how in Europe birds save trees by destroying eggs of the gypsy
moth.

In the year 1848 endless numbers of the larvae of Bombyx dispar had
eaten every leaf from the trees of Count Wodzicki, so that they were
perfectly bare. In the fall all the branches and limbs were covered with
the egg clusters. After he had recognized the impracticability of it, he
gave up all endeavor to remove them by hand, and prepared to see his
beautiful trees die. Towards winter numerous flocks of titmice and wrens
came daily to the trees. The egg clusters disappeared. In the spring
twenty pairs of titmice nested in the garden, and the larva plague was
noticeably reduced. In the year 1850 the small feathered garden police
had cleaned his trees, so that he saw them during the entire summer in
their most beautiful verdure.3

The wrens referred to here probably were kinglets (Regulus
cnstatus), formerly known as golden-crested wrens.

American birds apparently have not yet learned to destroy
great quantities of the eggs of the gypsy moth, although several
species are said to eat them; but nearly 50 species are now

i Pacific Rural Press, Vol. XXXIX, No. 23, June 7, 1890, p. 580.

* Bulletin No. 222, Michigan Experiment Station, December, 1904, p. 89.

* Forstzoologie, Vol. II, 1880, p. 324.

37

known to destroy other forms of this moth, and I have exam-
ined two localities where birds are believed to have actually
extirpated small colonies of this insect.

Decrease of Birds followed by Increase of Destructive Insects.

Samuels tells us that Frederick the Great, fond of cherries,
ordered the destruction of sparrows which were stealing his
favorite fruit. A price was set on their heads throughout
Prussia, and the war against them was carried on successfully.
At the end of two years there were no sparrows, but neither
were there any cherries; and most other fruits also were want-
ing. The trees swarmed with caterpillars, lacked leaves, and so
produced little fruit. Insects had increased to an alarming
extent, since other birds had been killed or driven away by
the drastic measures employed against the sparrows. Finally
the King revoked his decree, but also felt obliged at consider-
able expense to import birds to take the place of those de-
stroyed.1

In 1798 the forests in Saxony and Brandenburg were ex-
tensively attacked by a lepidopterous insect that bored into the
wood and killed the trees. This became so general a calamity
that expert foresters and naturalists were sent by the regency
to inquire into the cause. From their report it became ap-
parent that the extraordinary increase of this insect and the
consequent destruction of the trees was due to the absence for
years of several species of woodpecker and titmouse.2

Reaumur asserts that in 1826 the great trees along that
noble avenue, the Alle Verte, at Brussels, were nearly deprived
of leaves by the caterpillars of the gypsy moth. In the autumn
the moths swarmed like bees; they were very abundant in the
park, and if one-half their eggs had hatched there would not
have been a leaf left in 1827. Two months later, however,
hardly an egg could be found. The extirpation of these eggs
was attributed to titmouses, creepers and other small birds which
abounded in the park and were known to eat the eggs of these
insects.3

» Annual Report, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1865 (1866), pp. 116, 117.
* Flagg, Wilson: The Utility of Birds, Annual Report, Massachusetts State Board of Agri-
culture, 1861 (1862), Abstract, pp. 66, 67.

« Kirby, William, and Spence, William: Entomology, 1846, p. 152.

38

Birds seem to have been numerous and unmolested at that
time in Brussels parks, but years later, under a policy of bird
destruction, insects got the upper hand.

In 1858 Kearly wrote that sparrows and other birds had
appeared at the park in Brussels in unusual numbers. This
should have warned the authorities that insect pests were be-
coming numerous there, but, instead, the birds were declared a
nuisance, their destruction was ordered, and the order was
carried out. The next year insects swarmed in the park. The
gypsy moth stripped nearly all the trees of their foliage, and
the last condition was worse than the first.1

After the French Revolution, when the game laws were
abolished, people, being accustomed to regard birds as the prop-
erty of the great landowners, began to destroy birds and game
without limit. This slaughter was followed from time to time
by an increase of pernicious insect pests, and resulted in great
distress through crop failure. Investigation by naturalists
proved that the destruction of birds was the indirect cause of
the failure of the crops.2

In 1861 the French harvests gave such an unusually poor re-
turn that a commission to inquire into the cause of the de-
ficiency was appointed at the instance of the Minister of Agri-
culture. The commission consulted expert naturalists, St.
Hilaire, Provost and others, and reported that the crop de-
ficiency was caused in great measure by the ravages of insects
which it is the function of certain birds to check. It was shown
that the people had been destroying such birds and collecting
their eggs in great numbers, and it was recommended that
prompt and energetic measures should be taken to stop the
killing of birds.3

Similar complaints were heard again from France witnin the
last decade. In 1910, according to Andre Godart's volume,
" Les Jardins Volieres," the scarcity of birds (due to insufficient
protection) was so great as to have been deemed responsible for
the loss of 40,000,000 francs to the grape growers of the
Gironde. Unchecked insect ravages had so decreased the olive
crop of southern France that the discouraged growers talked of

i Kearly, George: The Entomologists' Weekly Intelligencer, 1858, Vol. 4, p. 192.

» Annual Report, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1861 (1862), Abstract, pp.65, 66.

• Report, United States Commissioner of Patents (Agriculture), 1861, pp. 322, 323.

39

abandoning their industry. M. Godart in proposing a remedy
even went so far as to advocate the construction of large aviaries
in which birds could be reared under protection and released
to repopulate the deserted woods and fields.1

In 1914 a bitter cry went up again from French farmers re-
garding crops destroyed by insects and lessened yields. The
Societe d'Horticulture Pratique du Rhone, by way of warning
to the public, gave statistics of the enormous number of birds
that had been destroyed by the people, and recommended strict
law enforcement and education to stop bird destruction.2

The unusually severe weather of February, 1917, was very
destructive to birds in England. They were reported to have
died by thousands. Many birds also had been killed and the
eggs of others taken and used for food. The next year birds
were seen to be comparatively scarce. Then, apparently in
consequence of the scarcity of birds, insects notably increased.
According to the "London Times" of October 9, 1917, there
was a plague of caterpillars in many districts that had almost
stripped the trees of their leaves at the beginning of that
summer.3

In 1895 I received a letter from Monsieur J. O. Clercy, then
secretary of the Society of Natural Sciences, Ekaterinburg,
Russian Siberia, in which he said that the ravages of cutworms
and of ten species of locusts had contributed (together with the
dryness of the season) to produce a famine in that region. He
asserted that one of the evident causes which permitted such a
numerous propagation of insect pests was the almost complete
annihilation of birds, most of which had been killed and sent
abroad by wagonloads for ladies' hats.4 The cause of the in-
fliction was so evident that a law for the protection of birds
was enacted, thus "locking the stable door after the horse had
been stolen."

Professor Samuel Aughey of Nebraska gathered statistics in
regard to the killing of bobwhites and prairie chickens for the
market between 1864 and 1877, and also made a study of the

1 Oldys, Henry: Current Items of Interest, Audubon Society of the District of Columbia,
No. 33, June 23, 1917.

» Sainsbury, Edwin F.: Our Dumb Animals, June, 1914, p. 10.

» Oldys, Henry: Current Items of Interest, Audubon Society of the District of Columbia,
No. 37, June 29, 1918.

« Forbuah, E. H., and Fernald, C. H.: The Gypsy Moth, Massachusetts State Board of Agri-
culture, 1896, pp. 205, 206.

40

poisoning of other birds which were destroyed in great numbers
because they attacked the crops. The poisoning of these birds,
he believed, permitted a great increase of destructive insects,
particularly locusts. A farmer from Wisconsin informed me
that after the blackbirds in his vicinity had been killed off by
poison, white grubs increased in number and destroyed the
grass roots so that he personally lost $400 in one year from this
cause.

About twelve years ago Mr. Gardiner Hammond, who then
owned a large sheep farm on the Island of Martha's Vineyard,
informed me that the crows were killing his young lambs, and
that he had instituted a campaign against crows by offering
50 cents each for their heads. He said that this campaign had
been so successful that the payment of the bounty almost
bankrupted him at the time. The crows had nearly all dis-
appeared from his immediate vicinity. A few years later he in-
quired if I could tell him what was the matter with the grass
in his pastures. The roots had been cut off and the upper part
of the turf had been separated from the lower part. The grass
in great patches was dead and could be rolled up from the turf
like a carpet. I reminded him that I had advised against the
crow campaign, and he was now seeing the result of shooting
too many crows. In all probability, only a few crows had been
killing his lambs, and if he had set a hunter to watch and shoot
the actual culprits he would have saved his lambs and also his
pastures. The cause of the destruction of the grass was an
extreme multiplication of the larvae of the May beetle which cut
off the roots. Crows are very destructive to these beetles, and
when their repressive force was removed, the beetles multiplied
exceedingly and destroyed the grass roots.

A similar but much more impressive account of the devasta-
tion of grasslands by grubs following the almost complete de-
struction of birds comes from Australia.

Mr. C. W. Beebe, curator of birds at the New York Zoo-
logical Park, received a letter from Sydney, New South Wales,
dated September 12, 1908, in which the writer, Mr. Richard
Wralter Tomalin, says: —

In the sub-districts of Robertson and Kangaloon, in the Illawarra dis-
trict of New South Wales, what ten years ago was a waving mass of Eng-

41

lish cocksfoot and ryegrass, which had been put in gradually as the dense
vine scrub was felled and burnt off, is now a barren desert, and nine fami-
lies out of every ten which were renting properties have been compelled to
leave the district and take up other lands. This is through the grubs
having eaten the grass out by the roots. Plowing proved to be useless, as
the grubs ate out the grass just the same. While there recently I was in-
formed that it took three years from the time the grubs were first seen
until to-day to accomplish this complete devastation; in other words,
three years ago the grubs began work hi that beautiful country of green
mountains and running streams.

The birds had all been ruthlessly shot and destroyed in that district, and
I was amazed at the absence of bird life. The two sub-districts I have
mentioned have an area of about 30 square miles, and form a tableland
about 1200 feet above sea level. *

In the summer of 1914 a severe outbreak of the army worm
(Leucania unipuncta) occurred in southeastern Massachusetts.
On August 1, accompanied by Mr. Walt McMahon, I went to
Martha's Vineyard and visited a farm at North Tisbury. Army
worms were present there in enormous numbers. Their season
appeared to be about over and their destructiveness seemed to
have just passed its height. On fields where the corn had stood
more than waist high the crop had been eaten down to the
ground, leaving no visible evidence that corn had grown there.
In other fields there still was a little corn left standing. Nearly
all the turf in the grass fields appeared dead and brown. Here
trenches had been plowed about the fields to protect them.
Large quantities of poisoned bran had been scattered and had
destroyed some of the worms, as we saw the remains of it and
many dead caterpillars. It was reported that these caterpillars
had lain over a foot deep in some of the trenches, but these
had been plowed under. Here we saw almost no birds; the
only small bird noted was one red-winged blackbird. A farmer
on the ground stated his belief that the poisoned bran had
killed the birds, or that they had been killed by eating poisoned
army worms. It was said that some turkeys also had been
poisoned on another farm.

* Oldys, Henry: Current Items of Interest, Audubon Society of the District of Columbia,
No. 3, April 15, 1909.

42

Increase of Birds followed by Decrease of Destructive Insects.

As an extreme contrast to the condition of the farm men-
tioned above, let me present another experience. Later in the
day we went to the State bird reservation on the island. Here
the army worms appeared to have been nearly as numerous as
at the other place, but no poison had been used because of the
danger of poisoning the heath hen, a bird now nearly extinct,
for the preservation of which this reservation was established.
The condition of the fields here was much better than at North
Tisbury. There was no noticeable injury in the cornfields. The
grass had been eaten somewhat in some of the fields, but
apparently there was no serious damage. Particular efforts had
been made here for years to attract and protect birds, and these
efforts had been successful. Many nesting boxes had been put
up on fences, posts, poles, etc., and most of them were occupied.
Birds were seen everywhere. Bushes at the borders of the
fields were more or less whitened by their excrement, which
showed that they had been living on animal food. With our
glasses many birds could be seen feeding on the army worms.
Many heath hens were noted in the fields, apparently picking
up these insects. Among the birds seen to feed on these worms
were the chipping sparrow, English sparrow, field sparrow, song
sparrow, robin, flicker, bluebird and red-winged blackbird.
Apparently, also, the brown thrasher, towhee and kingbird were
eating them, and people reported that cowbirds, catbirds,
yellow-legs and upland plovers also had attacked them. Robins
appeared to be among the most effective of all, and English
sparrows were quite numerous in the fields. The difference be-
tween the result of the insect invasion at North Tisbur^y and
that at the heath hen reservation seemed to have been attribu-
table mainly to the scarcity of birds at the former locality and
their abundance at the latter.

On my own place at Wareham, in this particular year, much
pains had been taken to attract birds, and on neighboring
farms to the eastward nesting boxes had been put up so that
altogether more than 75 had been erected. Most of these
wrere occupied by birds early in the season. Here, again, we
had ocular evidence of the utility of birds. While photo-

DESTRUCTION BY THE ARMY WORMS.

Cornfield on Marthas Vineyard where a quantity of poisoned bran was used and birds

disappeared.

BIRDS SAVED THIS CORNFIELD FROM THE ARMY WORMS.

Here no poisoned bran was used, but birds had been attracted, were present in large num-
bers, and destroyed the caterpillars.

43

graphing birds we noted that they were bringing army worms
to their young, and neither my crops nor my neighbor's, on
whose premises these nesting boxes had been put up, suf-
fered at all by the army worms. Twenty rods west of my
farm some injury was done to the grass by the worms, and
from there over and through the town of Wareham, where no
attempt had been made to increase the birds, much grass was
eaten and some corn. Where birds are sufficiently abundant,
they destroy the first generation of the army worm, and so
prevent excessive increase. Usually, when the first brood is
unchecked, it is the second generation of the year that becomes
numerous enough to devastate the crops.1

In 1894 my assistant, Mr. Charles E. Bailey, experimented
in an old orchard on my ground at Medford, Massachusetts, to
determine whether any effect on orchard pests could be pro-
duced by attracting birds. The trees were not sprayed nor
protected from insects in any way, but food was provided for
birds in winter, nesting boxes were erected in spring, and an
attempt was made to protect birds from their enemies. By
these means the number of birds feeding about the place was
much increased. It happened that orchard insects were very
plentiful and destructive that year, but the birds in our orchard
destroyed many thousands of eggs and females of the fall and
spring cankerworm moths, eggs of the tent moth, caterpillars

of the gypsy moth, case-
bearers, tineids, etc. By
examining the contents of
the stomachs of chicka-
dees, Mr. Bailey reached
the conclusion that a
single chickadee in twenty-
five days would destroy
138,750 eggs of the can-

Chkar°yer °f °rchard kerworm moth. The sig-

nificant outcome of our

experiment was, that while all the other orchards in the neigh-
borhood except the one nearest ours were stripped of their

i Seventh Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1914, pp. 20-22.

44

foliage and bore no fruit that year, our orchard remained in full
foliage and produced a full crop of fruit.1

Mr. B. A. Arnold who, in the summer of 1913, lived at
Northeast Harbor, Maine, wrote me that a spruce moth
(probably one of the Tortricids) had become quite abundant in
that vicinity, so much so that people were beginning to fear
the destruction of the spruce woods. He had noticed that the
red squirrels which were numerous in the woods were protect-
ing the moths by destroying the eggs and young of warblers
and other small birds; therefore he had killed off the squirrels
on the peninsula on which his cottage was situated and which
was connected to the mainland only by a narrow neck of land.
Many young warblers were reared on his place, and the birds

Egg clusters of the cankerworm moth, eaten by chickadees.

could be seen at all hours of the day hunting their food on the
spruces. In a short time the trees were cleared of both worms
and moths and the pest was stayed, while on the mainland
the defoliation of the trees still continued.2

In 1916 and 1917 the groves in the parks at Minot, North
Dakota, were attacked by thousands of measuring worms. In
1918 Mr. Will O. Doolittle took measures to attract wild birds,
which came in numbers and soon freed the trees of the pests.
Chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers, attracted to the
parks, became very tame by constant feeding and atterition,
and cedar waxwings, rose-breasted grosbeaks and kingbirds
showed particular efficiency in ridding the trees of their insect
enemies.3

The late Rev. William R. Lord reported on December 1,
1913, that the town authorities of Dover, Massachusetts, had
been cutting down wild cherry trees because those trees harbored

1 Annual Report, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1895 (1896), pp. 347-362.

2 Sixth Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1913, p. 27.

3 Oldys, Henry: Current Items of Interest, Audubon Society of the District of Columbia,
No. 38, July 1, 1918.

45

tent caterpillars. Mr. Lord refused permission to have the trees

on his estate cut, as he had been attracting birds about the

place and desired to raise wild cherries as food for them. The

caterpillars did very little harm on

his estate. In the fall of 1913 many

tent caterpillar moths had laid their Eggs of the tent^~^ moth, an

eggS On his trees, but m late No- enemy of the apple tree, eaten by

, , , chickadees and blue jays.

vember when he examined the trees

he found that the birds, mainly chickadees, had removed nearly

all the egg clusters.

Baron Hans von Berlepsch experimented for many years with
methods for attracting birds at his estate in Thuringia by
means of nesting boxes, food plants and bird food. He thus
increased enormously the number of birds on his estate. The
practical value derived from the insect-eating habits of his
birds was shown in the spring of 1905.

The Hainich wood, south of Eisenach, which covers several
square miles, was entirely defoliated by the caterpillars of a
little moth (Tortrix mridana), but the woods on the near-by
estate of Baron Von Berlepsch were left entirely untouched by
the caterpillars, so that they actually stood out from the sur-
rounding barren leafless woods like a green oasis in the country-
side. At a distance of a little more than a quarter of a mile
from his estate the first traces of the plague were apparent, and
half a mile away it was in full force. This plainly showed how
far the birds from his estate had traveled to find food.1

Similar observations were made during a plague of the same
caterpillar in 1906 in the Crown Wood Harras, in the Grand
Duchy of Hesse, where the protection of birds had been carried
on energetically for a few years; also the abundant use of
nesting boxes in the Prussian woods at this same period brought
about a marked decrease in at least two species of destructive
insects.

BIRDS AS WEED DESTROYERS.

Fighting weeds occupies about 30 per cent of all the time a
farmer spends in cultivating his crops, according to experts of
the United States Department of Agriculture. Birds assist the

1 Hiesemann, M.: How to Attract and Protect Wild Birds, London, 1912, pp. 50, 51;
translation by Emma S. Buchheim.

46

farmer by destroying weeds. Sparrows, doves, bobwhites and
many other birds feed voraciously on the seeds of weeds during
autumn and winter. Sparrows are pre-eminently seed eaters,
and destroy vast quantities of weed seeds. Dr. Judd made a
thorough study of the subject. He found that a single weed
sometimes produced many thousands of seeds, but he also esti-
mated that the birds on one acre of a Maryland farm ate 46,000
weed seeds for their breakfast. Professor F. E. L. Beal esti-
mated that the tree sparrows of Iowa destroy about 875 tons
of weed seed annually during their winter sojourn.1 Instances
have been known where sparrows have eaten practically all the
weed seeds in certain small tracts, but these are rare. Un-
doubtedly the destruction of weed seeds by birds in grass fields
or grain fields is a benefit. In gardens or on truck farms weeds
are a blessing in disguise, as they stimulate hoeing and cultiva-
tion, and thus bring about a surface tilth which often is essential
to the conservation of moisture. Therefore the utility of weed-
eating birds in the garden is questionable.

BIRDS AS DISTRIBUTORS AND PLANTERS OF SEEDS.

Recent investigations have shown that in some cases a few
weed seeds pass through the alimentary system of some birds
uninjured. In such cases the bird may become a distributor
and planter of weeds in a small way, and may thereby offset
the good done by eating seeds, but in nature seed distribution
is necessary to keep the soil covered with vegetation and pre-
vent erosion.

Waterfowl and wading birds sometimes carry seeds of water
plants from place to place in bits of mud attached to their feet.
Jays, crows, magpies and some other species seem to ha^e a
mania for distributing and hiding things. No doubt many
seeds, especially chestnuts and acorns, are hidden away by
birds and never found by them again. Sudden fright often
causes a bird to drop food that it is carrying. All fruit-eating
birds scatter abroad the seeds of fruit on which they feed. Such
seeds are either passed uninjured through the alimentary canal,
or are ejected from the mouth after the pulp has been digested.
Birds assimilate fruit pulp very rapidly. Dr. E. A. Mearns

i Judd, S. D.: Bulletin No. 15, Division of Biological Survey, United States Department
of Agriculture, 1901, p. 27.

47

found that more than 900 juniper berries passed through the
digestive tract of a Bohemian waxwing in six hours. Mr. Frank
J. Phillips gives a list of 26 birds that eat juniper berries.1
Probably others also eat them and assist in distributing the
seeds. The seeds and pits of the larger fruits eaten by birds
are mostly regurgitated and they are scattered far and wide.
Birds alone would soon replant all the cleared lands were it
not for the mowing machine, the reaper and the tools of culti-
vation. The tangles of trees, shrubs and vines that so often
spring up along the fences and roadsides are due largely to
planting by birds.

BIRDS AS SCAVENGERS.

Birds perform a valuable service as scavengers. The utility
of vultures, ravens and crows, in quickly devouring garbage
and the decaying carcasses of animals, is well known, and this
service is particularly valuable in hot countries. Gulls and
some other sea birds are particularly useful in cleaning up the
garbage of large cities when it is dumped into the sea. Every-
thing edible that floats is destroyed by the gathering thousands
of these birds, and is thus prevented from drifting back upon
the beaches. Masses of dead and decaying fish or shellfish
thrown upon the shore by the waves are quickly disposed of by
gulls. Complaints have been made that they have even stolen
dead fish used to manure the fields. Only recently on Long
Island it is said that a farmer bought and paid for tons of star-
fish that he intended to use as fertilizer, but when he came
with his teams to haul them away the heap had disappeared.
Eyewitnesses said that the gulls had stolen them all. This story
illustrates how quickly the assembling gulls remove a mal-
odorous nuisance, and how vigilant they are in this service.

UTILITY OF BIRDS OF PREY.

Birds of prey perform a part in the economy of nature by
limiting the increase of many of the larger insects, besides some
of the smaller birds and mammals, which if unchecked might
cause great disturbances in the balance of Nature. These rap-
torial species are checks upon the increase of other natural

1 The Dissemination of Junipers by Birds, reprint from Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VIII, No. 1,
pp. 5, 15, 16.

48

enemies of birds. They are active, also, in limiting to harmless
bounds the many creatures on which they prey.

Owls destroy great numbers of nocturnal creatures, such as
rats, mice and the larger night-flying insects. Both hawks and
owls render valuable service to the farmer by holding in check
the increase of small mammals, such as squirrels, gophers,
lemmings, wood mice and field mice. These little animals are
not very destructive when in normal numbers, but field mice,
for example, are very prolific, each pair producing a large
number of young each year. They breed so rapidly that unless
held in check they soon overrun the country, destroying grass,
grain, trees and practically every green thing, also the eggs of
game birds and other ground-breeding birds.

The majority of the hawks and owls spend most of their
feeding hours in hunting for and destroying such small mammals,
and their capacity for such food is enormous. Lord Lilford re-
ports that he has seen a pair of barn owls bring food to their
young seventeen times within half an hour, and that he fed
nine mice in quick succession to a young barn owl two-thirds
grown.1 As the owls throw up the indigestible parts of their
food, pellets composed mainly of fur and bones may be found
in the vicinity of their nests or roosts. In 1890 a pair of barn
owls occupied a space in the upper part of a tower in the
Smithsonian Institution at Washington, District of Columbia.
An examination of 200 of the pellets found there gave a total of
454 skulls. There were remains of 225 field mice, 2 pine mice,
179 house mice, 20 rats, 6 jumping mice, 20 shrews, 1 mole and
1 vesper sparrow.2 Mr. O. E. Niles asserts that he found 113
dead rats on the ground below a great horned owl's nest, and
several more in the nest. Their skulls had been opened and
their brains removed.2

The young of hawks and owls remain a long time in the nest
and require a great quantity of food. Dr. A. K. Fisher of the
Biological Survey examined the stomach contents of 690 hawks
and owls from various parts of the United States, and con-
cluded, as a result of these examinations and correspondence
with many observers, that most hawks are more or less bene-
ficial to agriculture, and most owls are exceedingly useful birds.

i Tegetmeier, W. B.: The Field [London], Vol. LXXV, No. 1956, June 21, 1890, p. 906.
* Fisher, A. K.: Hawks and Owls of the United States, Bulletin No. 3, Division of Orni-
thology and Mammalogy, United States Department of Agriculture, 1893, pp. 136, 176.

REGURGITATED OWL PELLETS.

These pellets, composed of bones and fur, also feathers of a robin, were ejected near author's
house by screech owls. (From Useful Birds and Their Protection.)

THE SAME PELLETS DISSFCTED.

The fur is shown in a pile on the right, and on the left portions of skulls and other bones of
mice, with a few of shrews and moles, eaten by the owls. (From Useful Birds and Their
Protection.)

49

In many parts of the world irruptions of lemmings, gophers
or field mice have occurred, and in such cases rapacious birds
have gathered, forming more or less effectual checks on these
outbreaks. Such occurrences are on record in England and
Scotland. The following quaint account, taken from Stowe's
"Chronicle" in 1581, tells of an outbreak in England: —

About Hallowtide last past [1580] in the marshes of Danessey Hundred,
in a place called South Minster, in the county of Essex, there sodainlie
appeared an infinite number of mice, which overwhelming the whole earth
in the said marshes, did sheare and gnaw the grass by the roots, spoyling
and tainting the same with their venimous teeth in such sort that the cat-
tell which grazed thereon were smitten with a murraine and died thereof;
which vermine by policie of man could not be destroyed, till at the last it
came to pass that there flocked together such a number of owles, as all the
shire was able to yield, whereby the marsh-holders were shortly delivered
from the vexation of the said mice. The Like of this was also in Kent. 1

Similar "sore plagues" were experienced in Essex again in
1648, in Norfolk in 1745, and in Gloucestershire and Hampshire
in 18,13-14.2

The following extract regards Norfolk: —

Once in about six or seven years, Hilgay, about one thousand acres, is
infested with an incredible number of field mice, which, like locusts, would
devour the corn of every kind. Invariably there follows a prodigious
flight of Norway owls, and they tarry until the mice are entirely destroyed
by them.3

Notwithstanding that both the cause and remedy of these
frequent outbreaks of field mice were apparent, the destruction
of their natural enemies by man still went on. In 1875-76 a
noted outbreak of mice occurred in the borders of Roxburgh-
shire, Selkirkshire and Dumfriesshire, also in parts of Yorkshire.
The abundance of mice attracted hawks, owls and foxes in un-
usual numbers. In 1892 an alarming increase of these field mice
again occurred in the south of Scotland. In Roxburgh and
Dumfries alone the plague was estimated to have extended over
an area of 80,000 to 90,000 acres.4 A preponderance of opinion
among the farmers was reported, tracing the cause of this out-
break to the scarcity of owls, hawks, weasels and other so-

1 See also an account of the same occurrence by Childrey in Brittannia Baconica, 1660, p. 14.
* Journal, Royal Agricultural Society, 1892, p. 223, and papers there cited.
» Gentleman's Magazine, 1754, Vol. XXIV, p. 215.

« Report to the Board of Agriculture on the Plague of Field Mice or Voles in the South of Scot,
land, 1892.

50

called vermin. All these animals, and crows, also, are to be
ranked among the natural enemies of mice. The statement
made by Childrey regarding the assemblage of owls when the
field mice swarmed in Essex in 1580 received confirmation
during 1892. Local observers reported that, after the great
increase of voles occurred, the short-eared owl (Asio flammeus)
became much more numerous on the hill farms, and that many
pairs, contrary to precedent, remained to breed.

Dr. W. B. Wall expresses the opinion, from his experience
with the pests, that their chief enemies are the owl and the
kestrel (a hawk), which do more to reduce their ranks than all
the traps of the farmers and the "microbes of the scientists"
combined. Both farmers and gamekeepers in England and
Scotland are inclined to regard these birds as vermin, to be
shot at sight.1

Any one who doubts that under normal conditions of Nature
the natural enemies of field mice can check effectively any
irruption of these creatures should read a chapter in one of
Hudson's books, entitled "A Wave of Life." He writes of a
time when the pampas of the La Plata were mainly a wilderness
inhabited only by scattered bands of Indians. He says that
in the summers of 1872 and 1873 (which would correspond
chronologically with the winter of those years in North America),
an unusually fertile and prolific season there, mice became so
abundant that domestic fowls pursued them incessantly. Foxes,
weasels, cats and even armadillos fared sumptuously. Storks
and owls greatly increased in numbers. "On the pampas," he
says, "whenever mice, frogs or crickets become excessively
abundant we confidently look for the appearance of multitudes
of the birds that prey on them." Years may have passed when
hardly an individual of any of these birds was to be seen", but
now the stork, short-eared owl, black-backed gull, hooded gull
and other species appear, a few at first, like harbingers, and
before long they arrive in myriads. Short-eared owls remained
in numbers, and, supplied with abundant food, began to breed
in winter. "As the mice increased," he says, "so did their
enemies." Insectivorous and other species acquired the habits
of owls and weasels, preying exclusively on mice, while to the

i Useful Birds and their Protection, 1913, pp. 76-78.

51

WHITE-FOOTED OB DEER MOUSE.
A destructive wood mouse, the increase of which is controlled largely by hawks and owls.

FIELD OR MEADOW MOUSE.
A prolific and devastating mouse, held in check by hawks and owls.

52

army of resident birds were shortly added multitudes of wander-
ing ones from distant regions. In the autumn the earth so
teemed with mice that one could scarcely walk without treading
on them; but so rapidly were they devoured by the trained
army of their enemies that in spring it was hard to find a single
survivor, even in the barns and houses. The storks all left in
winter, and by August, 1873, even the short-eared owls had
vanished. Mice were now so scarce that the little resident
burrowing owls were almost famished, and hung about the
houses of the settlers to pick up scraps of garbage that were
thrown to them.1

In many parts of the western United States the destruction
of the natural enemies of rodents has now gone so far that these
animals have increased greatly in numbers. Whole communities
find themselves compelled to turn out to hunt "jack rabbits."
The Biological Survey has been obliged to organize the farmers
over large areas in the work of poisoning mice, gophers and
ground squirrels. Bounties have been offered on the heads of
these creatures, and large sums have been paid out for their
destruction. In one case in Montana in 1887 a special session
of the Legislature was called to repeal the bounty act and save
the State from bankruptcy. In the Humboldt valley in Ne-
vada, in 1907-08, the loss to crops by an irruption of field
mice was estimated conservatively at $250,000. 2 It was esti-
mated that 2,000 raptorial birds and 1,000 predatory mammals
gathered and assisted to quell this outbreak, and that they de-
stroyed 1,350,000 mice each month, yet there were not enough
of these carnivorous creatures left in that country to check the
pest materially, and the farmers were compelled to resort to
poisons.2

In New England our common hares, miscalled rabbits, are
kept in check by the hunter. But field mice, not subject to this
check, destroyed thousands of young fruit trees during the
winters of 1903-04 and 1904-05.

» Hudson, W. H.: The Naturalist in La Plata, 1895, pp. 58-63.

2 Piper, Stanley E.: Mouse Plagues and their Control and Prevention, Yearbook, United
States Department of Agriculture, 1908, pp. 302, 304.

53

SERVICES RENDERED BY SHORE BIRDS, MARSH BIRDS, WATER-
FOWL AND SEA BIRDS.

The usefulness of snipes, woodcocks, sandpipers, plovers,
curlews and other shore birds and marsh birds as insect de-
stroyers is not generally appreciated. Many species feed
voraciously on marsh and field insects, such as cutworms, grass-

Killdeer plover, one of the most useful birds of the field.

hoppers, locusts, wireworms and grubs. In their spring migra-
tions through the Mississippi valley region, shore birds destroy
countless hordes of grass-eating and crop-destroying insects.
Species that breed inland in agricultural regions, such as the
killdeer, mountain plover, upland plover, spotted sandpiper and
long-billed curlew, are so useful throughout the year that they
should be protected by law perpetually for the benefit of agri-
culture. The killdeer and the upland plover also befriend cattle
by devouring the North American fever tick.

Professor Aughey found that 23 species among the shore birds
and 10 species of wild-fowl were actively destroying locusts and
other insects in Nebraska, and Mr. W. L. McAtee finds that
grasshoppers are a staple food of many shore birds.1 Mr. H. W.
Tinkham of Touisset, Massachusetts, watched six spotted sand-
pipers preying on cutworms and cabbage worms. The diet of
shore birds includes such pests as army worms, cutworms, boll
weevils, clover-root curculios, clover-leaf weevils, rice weevils,

* McAtee, W. L.: Bureau of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture,
Circular No. 79, 1911, p. 4.

54

corn billbugs, corn-leaf beetles, cucumber beetles, ticks, horse-
flies and mosquitoes. Nine species are known to feed on
mosquito larvae, and doubtless others do so.

Egrets and herons eat many crawfish. Crawfish destroy
young fish; they also burrow into dykes, and thus become at
times a serious menace to the levees of the lower Mississippi.
In recent years, since the great destruction of egrets in the
southern States, immense damage to crops by crawfish has been
reported from Alabama and Mississippi, where over a wide
stretch of country " estimated at not less than 100 square miles,
they have prevented to a very considerable extent the successful
production of cotton and corn." l Can this be a mere coincidence?

The National Association of Audubon Societies made an
examination of the stomach contents of young herons and
egrets. The results, tabulated below, prove these birds to be
destroyers not only of crawfish but also of insect pests.

Food of Young Herons.

[Based on the examination by O. E. Baynard, Orange Lake, Florida, of 50 meals of each of the

following species.]

SPECIES.

Grass-
hoppers.

Cutworms.

Crawfish.

Suckers.

Mis-
cellaneous
Objects.

Snowy egret, ....

762

91

29

-

9

Little blue heron,

1,900

149

142

-

45

Louisiana heron,

2,876

17

67

-

14

Egret

-

-

176

61

2972

Young herons have a very accommodating and hospitable
habit of presenting their food to visitors by regurgitation after
they have eaten it, and adult birds when suddenly frigntened
or disturbed often drop food from their bills. It is easy, there-
fore, to make a rather comprehensive survey of their food in
the heronry without actually killing the birds. In 1915 fisher-
men on the Massachusetts coast complained that black-crowned
night herons, which had increased under protection for several
years, were catching so many eels that they were endangering

1 Fisher, A. K.: Crawfish as Crop Destroyers, Yearbook, United States Department of
Agriculture, 1911, p. 322.
* Frogs.

55

the eel-fishing industry. In 1916, at the suggestion of Mr.
William C. Adams, then chairman of the Massachusetts Com-
missioners on Fisheries and Game, I visited three large heron-
ries and collected and examined much partially digested ma-
terial. The food consisted largely of fishes not considered of
much value for human consumption, the principal species being
the alewife. At a heronry on Cape Cod most of the food con-
sisted of squids. The only valuable food fishes found were one
eel and one pickerel.

Under the circumstances these herons could not be considered
as detrimental to the fisheries at that time. Whether or not
they were beneficial depends largely on the food habits of squids
at that place and season. Squids destroy quantities of her-
ring spawn. Probably all American herons and bitterns attack
grasshoppers and locusts, and such caterpillars as cutworms and
army worms, whenever these insects become numerous in or
near their haunts. The larger species destroy field mice also.

The brown pelican on the Florida coast lives mainly on men-
haden, an inedible fish, and both the brown pelicans and white
pelicans on the western plains feed more or less on grasshoppers
and locusts when these destructive insects are abundant. The
notion that fish-eating birds are seriously destructive to food
fishes arises from the fact that birds are conspicuous when
fishing, while porpoises, predatory fishes and other creatures
that devour food fishes and their eggs and young work mainly
beneath the surface, out of sight. Probably most if not all
fish prey on other fish or their spawn, and if we were to at-
tempt to increase the supply of valuable fish by killing off their
enemies, we should have to destroy most of the denizens of the
ocean.

As an example of the useful habits of fish-eating birds, we
may note those of the fish ducks, the sheldrakes or mergansers.
These birds at times feed more or less upon trout, but they also
destroy the enemies of trout. Minnows are eaten by mergan-
sers, and minnows are said by good authority to devour large
numbers of trout eggs. Trout fry, too, are destroyed by
mosquitoes, which pierce the brains of the little fry when the
latter come to the surface and leave them floating dead upon
the current; but quantities of mosquito larvse are destroyed by

56

ducks which doubtless thus save many young trout. The
influence of fish-eating birds is exerted to keep the balance true
between the fish and their enemies, and to prevent any undue
increase of either. If an increase of minnows or mosquitoes
occurs then the ducks are likely to eat more and more mos-
quitoes or more minnows, or they may eat more trout if the
trout are unduly numerous. This explains why fish-eating birds
may be very destructive to artificially raised trout, which are
kept in small ponds in numbers far exceeding those normally
bred in equal space in the streams.

We sometimes hear complaints from fishermen that scoters
(commonly called coots), or other diving ducks, are destroying
shellfish and thus injuring the shellfish industry. But these
ducks feed only on very small shellfish, never on marketable
ones. They cannot swallow the larger ones. Moreover, Dr.
G. W. Field, formerly chairman of the Massachusetts Commis-
sion on Fisheries and Game, and now (1921) in the fisheries
service of Brazil, informs me that the thinning out of young
clams which is accomplished by these birds tends to promote
the rapid growth of those that are left, so that they more
quickly reach marketable size. At first the clams are often so
numerous that they have neither sufficient room nor food to
develop. He also assures me that these ducks feed on destruc-
tive enemies of shellfish. Though possibly harmful at times,
probably these birds are indispensable to the prosperity of the
shellfish industry.

If we consider the fact that mosquitoes and flies are among
the most dangerous enemies to the life and health of mankind
because they carry and spread the germs of weakening and even
fatal diseases, we shall more readily appreciate the services of
birds in destroying these insects. The common house fly^ dis-
seminates on human food the germs of typhoid fever, tubercu-
losis and other diseases. Many birds, particularly poultry and
game birds, feed on fly larvae. Mosquitoes infect people with
the germs of malaria and yellow fever. Because of this distri-
bution of such diseases by insects, great tracts of fertile land
are rendered uninhabitable to white men, many deaths occur
annually, and there is an enormous yearly economic loss through
illness and death. Many birds destroy mosquitoes or their
larvae; among these the shore birds and wild-fowl stand pre-

57

eminent. The people of the State of New Jersey for years and
years industriously killed off wild-fowl and shore birds for the
market. Now they are on record as spending $3,500,000 a year
in fighting mosquitoes.1 But New Jersey is not alone, either in
such killing or in such subsequent expenditure.

Probably most surface-feeding ducks that get a large part of
their summer food about the margins of ponds and pools de-
stroy incalculable numbers of mosquitoes by eating the larvae
which abound in such places. Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, commis-

THE MALLARD.

A destroyer of disease-distributing mosquitoes. (From Game Birds, Wild Fowl and

Shore Birds.)

sioner of public health in Pennsylvania, writes that for some
years he has used ducks to keep down mosquitoes in swamps
that were difficult to drain, but that he never fully appreciated
the high efficiency of the duck as a destroyer of mosquito life
until he made the following test in a swamp after several un-
successful attempts to destroy the mosquito larvae by intro-
ducing fishes. He divided the swampy area into two equal
parts, each about 1,400 square feet in extent. One pond was

1 Washburn, F. L.: Fins, Feathers and Fur, June, 1915, p. 7.

58

stocked with goldfish, and the other was left as a feeding
ground for ducks. Both were ideal as breeding places for
mosquitoes. Where the fish had been introduced mosquito
larvse continued to flourish; but soon in the other pond there
were no larvse to be found. He then put ten mallard ducks into
the fish pond, and within forty-eight hours only a few larvse
were left. The following letter commenting on this experience
is of interest to all who suffer in summer from a pest of mos-
quitoes : —

Corroborating Dr. Dixon's interesting report on the duck as a preven-
tative against malaria and yellow fever (Journal, American Medical As-
sociation, October 3, 1914, p. 1203), I have been observing the food of the

v&S&k. ~*

WOOD DUCK.

One of the most useful native ducks which destroys mosquitoes. (From Game
Birds, Wild Fowl and Shore Birds.)

wild duck for the past three years, and find that the mosquito and larvae
are readily devoured by the duck. I have eight varieties under observa-
tion, and note that the best insect destroyers are the beautiful wood ducks
(Aix sponsa), and the green-winged teal (Nettion carolinensis) . These
ducks are smaller than the mallard (Anas platyrhyncos), and their diet

59

more insectivorous. The wood duck is almost extinct except in cap-
tivity.1 It is the most beautiful of all the duck family; therefore the
introduction of this bird would help to perpetuate its kind, and also be of
use in keeping down all noxious aquatic insect life. — WM. C. HERMAN,
Instructor in Pharmacology, Medical College of the University of
Cincinnati.*

Gulls and terns that breed on islands in inland lakes are
effectual destroyers of many insect pests. In many parts of
the world gulls follow the plow and pick up grubs, wireworms,
etc., that are found in the upturned soil; gulls also greatly
assist in checking irruptions of destructive field mice and other
small rodents.

Terns and some other sea birds aid fishermen by guiding them
to schools of food fish. The birds find schools of small sur-
face fish on which larger marketable fish feed, and by flocking
to feed on little fish the birds point out to the watching
fishermen the places where they must cast their nets. Both
seine fishermen and line fishermen watch these birds closely,
and often are guided largely by the actions of the gathering
flocks. Gulls and terns serve also to guide mariners in foggy
weather along dangerous coasts. These birds breed in large
colonies on isolated islands. Navigators of coasting craft know
well the locations of these islands and their position in relation
to the channels. In thick fog a vessel often stops at certain
points until the listening navigator can hear the cries of the
breeding birds on some well-known island. These cries, by
giving warning of the rocks and locating their direction, enable
him to correct his course. In summer fogs longshore fishermen
often verify their courses by watching the undeviating flight
of terns flying to some well-known island with food for their
young.

Dr. Frank M. Chapman has shown, in an interesting paper
on the ornithology of the first voyage of Columbus, that we
possibly owe the discovery of America by Columbus to the fact
that he happened to approach the land at the right time and
place to cross the line of the autumnal flight of birds that were
flying from the Bermudas to the Bahamas and Antilles. The

1 Since this was written laws protecting the wood duck have been passed, and the species has
increased considerably in numbers in some parts of the United States.
» Journal of the American Medical Association, October 17, 1914, p. 1410.

60

discouraged seamen were on the verge of mutiny, and might
have compelled Columbus to return to Spain, had not some
small land birds finally come aboard unwearied and singing.
The course of the vessel was changed to follow the direction of
their flight, and the voyage was thus shortened 200 miles and
ended in the discovery of a new world.1

CASH VALUE OF BIRDS' SERVICES.

Many calculations have been made to determine the actual
cash value of birds to the farmers, but, owing to the many
factors to be considered, such figures in the nature of the case
may invite criticism. Dr. W. T. Hornaday asserts that each
woodpecker in the United States is worth $20, and each nut-
hatch or chickadee from $5 to $10,2 but he does not tell us how
he arrives at these figures.

On December 12, 1907, President Roosevelt sent a message
to Congress transmitting a report of the Secretary of Agri-
culture on the work of the Biological Survey. In this report it
is estimated that a single species, Swainson's hawk, a bird
inhabiting only a limited region in the western United States,
saves the farmers of that country $57,600 each year by destroy-
ing grasshoppers, and this is by no means the most common or
most useful of American hawks. After the breeding season
these birds collect in large flocks on the western plains, where
they feed mainly on grasshoppers, locusts and crickets.3 In-
cluding the field mice that they eat, these hawks are estimated
to save the western farmer $117,000 annually.

In 1885 the State of Pennsylvania passed a bounty act under
which in a year and a half $90,000 were paid mainly for the
destruction of hawks and owls, the bounty being 50 cents each.
Dr. C. Hart Merriam, then chief ornithologist and mammalogist
of the United States Department of Agriculture, estimated the
value of the chickens killed annually in Pennsylvania by hawks
and owls in a year and a half to be $1,875, and showed that the
State of Pennsylvania had paid out $90,000 to save its farmers
a loss on poultry of less than $2,000. His figures also showed
that each hawk and owl was worth on the average $20 a year

1 Papers presented to World's Congress on Ornithology, 1896, p. 181.

» Hornaday, W. T.: Our Vanishing Wild Life, 1913, p. 213.

» Sixtieth Congress, First Session, Senate Document No. 132, 1907, p. 3.

61

to the farmers of the State as a destroyer of mice and insects.
He therefore estimated that the pests left alive by the destruc-
tion of 128,571 hawks and owls had cost the people of the State
in that year and a half $3,850,000 in addition to the $90,000
paid out in bounties. Dr. Merriam's eminent position as a
scientist lends weight to his estimates.

A Michigan man boasts of having killed over 4,000 hawks,
and publishes his photograph together with those of 11 dead
hawks nailed to a barn door, all killed by him in one day.

Mr. J. Warren Jacobs observing this photograph is led to
remark that nearly three-quarters of the prey of the red-
shouldered hawk consists of field mice, and almost all the
remaining fourth consists of insects. This report is based upon
examinations of the stomachs of many hundreds of specimens
by naturalists in different parts of the United States, and par-
ticularly on examinations made by the Biological Survey of the
United States Department of Agriculture. Mr. Jacobs says
that-

The sacrifice of these 11 red-shouldered hawks, in one day, spared the
lives of possibly, if not actually, 77 field mice daily (7 for each hawk),
or 28,105 during the year. Each of these 28,105 mice would have de-
voured one-half ounce of grass tendrils and rootlets daily, totaling 878
pounds, or the equivalent of one-half that much hay or pasture grass in
a day, equaling 239 pounds, or 43£ tons in one year. The value of
43^ tons of hay is about $696. Thus each of these 11 hawks would
have prevented the destruction of $63 worth of hay by mice in one year.
To these figures should be added $15 saved by each hawk in destroying
other mammal pests and insects. l

These hawks, says Mr. Jacobs, are called chicken hawks, but
do not deserve the name, for less than 4 per cent of their food
consists of poultry and game birds.

Mr. C. C. Clute relates the following instance of money saved
through attracting birds: —

I know one farmer in particular who lost during one summer three rows
of com 40 rods long. The corn grew next to a fence-row heavily sodded
with bluegrass, which produced swarms of grasshoppers. For the sake of
the experiment alone, for this farmer was a skeptic, last spring he put up
21 bird houses, placed 2 rods apart, on the fence along the 40 rods. The
houses were some that he and the boys had made, during the winter

i Jacobs, J. Warren: Observations by the Way, Waynesburg, Pa., Feb. 18, 1916. (Apparently
Mr. Jacobs, figures are too low and the quantity of hay should be doubled.)

62

months, from dry goods boxes obtained in town. Thirteen of the 21
houses were inhabited during the following summer, 6 by wrens, 4 by
bluebirds, and 3 by colonies of purple martins. The grasshoppers that
summer made a rich living for the birds, and when the fall came that farmer
had the satisfaction of gathering 23 bushels of corn from the three rows
that grew next to the fence, right where there had been no corn at all the
year before. With corn selling at 55 cents per bushel, it represented a
saving of $12.65 for that year alone, and with the same insurance for the
following year with no outlay at all. x

The most recent investigation regarding the cash value of a
bird is that of Dr. Gross, who makes the following estimates in
regard to the dickcissel or black-throated bunting. He has
studied the food of the young of the dickcissel and also the food
of the adults. He noticed that from the fifth day until the
young left the nest their food was practically all grasshoppers.
These grasshoppers were taken from a near-by clover field
which was overrun with them. During the last days spent by
the young in the nest, grasshoppers were fed to them at the rate
of one every three or four minutes. A conservative estimate
indicates that about 200 grasshoppers were eaten each day by
the two adult birds and their four young. Dr. Gross says that
if each dickcissel family averages as well as these birds, then
the more than a million dickcissels in Illinois destroy about
100,000,000 grasshoppers in a day during this period of the
nesting season. Since each grasshopper, according to an esti-
mate made by Professor Lawrence Bruner, entomologist of the
Nebraska Experiment Station, consumes about one and one-half
times its own weight, or about .05 ounce of grass a day, then
100,000,000 grasshoppers would destroy about 156 tons daily.
The price of hay during the summer of 1918 was about $30 a
ton; therefore the dickcissels of Illinois during the active pejiod
of the nesting season saved the people of the State about $4,680
daily by the destruction of grasshoppers alone.2

Mr. W. L. McAtee, the eminent economic ornithologist of
the Bureau of Biological Survey, United States Department of
Agriculture, says that investigation has shown that most birds
are beneficial, although in varying degrees, and that only four
or five species in the United States are consistently injurious.

1 Iowa Conservation, January-March, 1917, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 12.

» Gross, Alfred O.: Auk, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, April, 1921, p. 166.

63

Taking numerous bird censuses as a basis he asserts that it is
practically certain that there are nearly 4,000,000,000 breeding
birds in the United States each summer. The great majority
of the birds of the United States are migratory, and those
which are purely migratory in this country, breeding in northern
North America, probably equal or surpass the population of our
breeding birds.

Mr. McAtee estimates the value of each bird as an insect
eater at 10 cents a year, which he himself admits is a ridicu-
lously low figure. Then, estimating the value of the purely
migratory species as one-sixth of that of the breeding species
(both resident and migratory), he asserts that without the
services of the birds the yearly bill for insect injury in the
country would be more than $444,000,000 greater than it now
is. This sum is more than one-third of the latest estimate of
the total annual damage by insects in the United States.1

UTILITY OF BIRDS IN WAR.

All humanitarians hope that wars will cease, and perhaps, in
time, during the evolution of the race, human nature will be-
come so changed that such wholesale murder will be abolished,
but probably no man now living will see that day. So long as
we have war the services of birds in war should be recognized.
In the recent great struggle which involved more than half the
world, the keen senses and powerful flight of birds were used to
great advantage.

When the great German airships began to raid England,
pheasants and other birds heard or saw them coming at great
distances, and gave the alarm by their insistent cries long before
human eyes or ears could discern their approach.

In the trenches great numbers of canaries were used to detect
the first approach of poison gas before it became apparent to
the less subtle senses of man. The distress of the little birds
gave timely warning to the soldiers that it was time to don the
gas masks.

Submarines and mines often were detected by watching the
behavior of sea gulls which, owing to the height at which

1 Speech of Congressman S. D. Fess of Ohio on the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Con-
gressional Record, Sixty-fifth Congress, Second Session, Vol. 56, No. 146, June 14, 1918, p. 7956.

64

they flew above the water, could readily see the submerged
submarine boats which they followed for the sake of the garbage
which all boats must discharge into the sea. Lookouts from
both destroyers and airplanes watched the movements of the
gulls, and by so doing sometimes located the submerged enemy.
Mines, escaping from their moorings, floated on the sea and
formed a danger which could only be met by extreme vigilance.
Gulls frequently perched and rested on the arms of these
floating mines and so called attention to them and saved ships
that otherwise might have been destroyed.

During the war the chief countries of the world were combed
for carrier pigeons. Wherever on the battlefields a heavy
"barrage" of exploding shells was laid down, breaking the
wires and disabling the runners by whom communication was
kept up with headquarters or with the batteries, carrier pigeons
were sent out, if available, with messages, and they conveyed
a very large percentage of those messages safely through the
hell of shellfire, despite the fact that shotguns were often used
by the enemy to bring down the birds.

The crew of a mine sweeper sunk by a submarine were saved
by a pigeon messenger which, sent by the dying captain,
reached its loft, though wounded and dying, in time to bring
a swift destroyer to the scene. The crews of seaplanes broken
down and wrecked at sea were saved by timely messages
carried by these birds which brought them speedy assistance.
A German submarine base was discovered on the coast and a
pigeon messenger carried the news in time to bring- destroyers
to capture the U-boats. This very brief and imperfect account
of the utility of birds in the great war is sufficient to show that
their services were not only valuable but essential.

COMMERCIAL VALUE OF BIRDS.

The commercial value of birds to man is incalculable. From
time immemorial birds have furnished both savage and civilized
man with a considerable part of his food; and since the marts
of trade have become established, the flesh, eggs and feathers
of birds have had a large place in trade and commerce. Birds
always have had a prominent place in the game markets of all
civilized lands.

65

Early Abundance of Game Birds.

When the Pilgrim Fathers settled at Plymouth in 1620, this
country was a vast breeding ground of game birds and mam-
mals. The elk, moose, deer, and the bison or buffalo, roamed
the land in countless numbers. Multitudes of wild turkeys and
many millions of grouse and quails were found on mountain
and plain. Pigeons sometimes filled the air with their amazing
myriads, hiding the sun, and in migration passed over the sky
in constant streams and in astounding numbers. Plovers,
snipes, curlews and sandpipers were so abundant that at times
the very soil of the Mississippi valley seemed to be alive and
moving with their feeding hordes. They swarmed on the
Atlantic coast, the islands of the sea, and even on the shores of
the Great Lakes in innumerable multitudes, while countless
numbers of waterfowl breeding over half the area of what is
now the United States, and over nearly all of wThat is now
British America, gathered in innumerable hordes, sweeping over
the country in the autumnal and vernal migrations.1 A similar
abundance of game birds once existed in nearly every land.

Game Birds as Food.

In the early days in America game was of little value com-
mercially, and many a hunter would not waste ammunition on
anything smaller than a bear, a deer or a wild turkey. But
from the very first settlement, wild turkeys, geese and other
waterfowl, grouse and pigeons formed a considerable part of
the food of the settlers. Such an abundant source of nourishing
food never was neglected, and as the large game diminished and
disappeared before the advance of civilization, the game birds
became relatively more important as a food supply for the
growing population. During the early settlement of the country
there were no markets, and when grouse were first sold they
brought but 1 copper cent each, while even as late as Audubon's
time wild turkeys might be bought in the west for 25 cents
apiece. But as the birds decreased in number and the demand
increased, prices were correspondingly raised. As civilization

1 Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1916,
Introduction.

66

extended over the great west, and railroads spanned the
country, game birds became a great commercial asset, and were
pursued and exploited with such vigor that in time some of
them became nearly extinct and a few species wholly disap-
peared. Considering the vast supply of game formerly sold in
the markets of the United States, very few figures relating to
the game business are available to-day.

Dr. D. G. Elliott asserts that a game dealer in New York
received 20 tons of prairie chickens in one consignment in 1864,
and that some of the larger dealers sold from 150,000 to 200,000
birds in six months. Professor Samuel Aughey, who gathered
statistics regarding the destruction of bobwhites and pinnated
grouse, or prairie hens, in Nebraska from 1865 to 1877, asserts
that about 450,000 of these birds were killed each year in thirty
counties of Nebraska alone. Game Commissioner John H.
Wallace, Jr., of Alabama says that before the present game laws
of his State were enacted no less than 9,000,000 bobwhites were
killed there in one season. In "Forest and Stream" of March
11, 1912, the assertion is made that on February 18, 9,000 bob-
whites in one illegal shipment were seized by a sheriff and a game
warden in Oklahoma.1

In 1909, when the sale of game was at its height, President
Frank M. Miller of the State Game Commission of Louisiana
was able to get rather accurate figures of the game birds killed
that year in that State. They totaled 5,719,214. The ex-
ploitation of the passenger pigeon, once on its roosting places
and on its nesting grounds perhaps the most numerous bird
ever known in any country, and now believed to be extinct,
will serve to illustrate the commercial value of game birds.
This bird was a great source of food supply to the early settlers,
who took large numbers in nets. With the growth and pros-
perity of cities, quantities of pigeons came into the city markets.
Audubon says that in 1815 he saw schooners at the wharves in
New York loaded in bulk with these pigeons, killed up the
Hudson River. From that time the trapping, netting and
shooting of the pigeons went on apace until 1878, when Pro-
fessor H. B. Roney estimated, after examining the ground and
the market shipments, that at least 1,000,000,000 pigeons were

i Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1916, p. 514.

67

killed in Michigan that year.1 It is generally believed, how-
ever, that this was an overestimate. But Mr. Sullivan Cook
says that in 1869 for about forty days there were shipped from
Hartford, Michigan, and vicinity three carloads a day of 150
barrels each; at 55 dozen pigeons to the barrel, this totals
880,000 birds for the season. He estimates that in two years
15,840,000 were shipped from Shelby, Michigan. Again, five
years later, Mr. C. H. Engle asserted there were shipped from
Petoskey, Michigan, five carloads a day for thirty days, with
an average of 8,250 dozens to the carload, or 14,850,000 birds.2

Hunters and netters followed the pigeons to every known
roost and nesting place until the species was nearly extinct.
The destruction of the golden plover, upland plover and Eskimo
curlew was brought about by the market demand, but the
birds were mostly shot. Audubon asserts that on the sixteenth
day of November, 1821, he was invited by some gunners to
accompany them to the neighborhood of Lake St. John, near
New Orleans, there to observe the flight of thousands of golden
plovers. The gunners were familiar with the route that the
plovers ordinarily took. The men gathered in parties of from
20 to 50, and sitting on the ground, equidistant from each
other, imitated calls of birds so that the plovers came within a
few yards. Audubon, having reckoned the number of gunners
in the field, and estimating the average number shot per man
during the day at 20 dozen birds, calculated that 48,000 golden
plovers were killed there that day. Two men on the Island of
Nantucket in the decade between 1840 and 1850 killed for
market enough plovers and curlews in one day to fill a tipcart
two-thirds full.3 From Audubon's time until the approach of
the extinction of the passenger pigeon in 1888, golden plovers
and Eskimo curlews were shot by sportsmen both east and
west in enormous numbers.

When the passenger pigeon became so scarce that it was
difficult for the pigeon netters to find employment for their
men, the marketmen turned to the supply of Eskimo curlews;
golden plovers and upland plovers, that were still numerous in

» American Field, Vol. X, pp. 345-347.

« Merehon, L. B.: The Passenger Pigeon, 1907, pp. 171, 172; see also Game Birds, Wild-Fowl
and Shore Birds, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1916, p. 454.

* Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1916,
p. 344.

68

the west. In one year alone (1890) two Boston firms received
from Nebraska, Missouri and Texas 40 barrels closely packed
with these birds.1 Similar shipments continued to arrive in the
large cities, with the result that during the latter part of the
nineteenth century or early in the twentieth, the Eskimo
curlew became practically extinct, and the upland plover and
golden plover were well on the way to extinction.

As game birds became scarce small birds appeared in many
markets. In 1902, 42,059 "game birds" were seized in a cold-
storage house in New York City, 8,058 of which were found
to be snow buntings, 7,607 sandpipers and 288 bobolinks.2
Mr. James Henry Rice, Jr., says that 720,000 bobolinks were
shipped to market in one season from Georgetown, South
Carolina, and countless numbers of small birds were sold in
other southern markets.

Dr. P. P. Claxton of the University of Tennessee tells of a
robin roost near Forest Hills in that State where robins were
dazed by torchlight night after night and killed by hundreds.*
Dr. Hornaday says that one small hamlet in Tennessee sent to
market yearly about 120,000 dead robins.4 During the last
part of the nineteenth century song birds in great numbers were
sold openly hi southern markets. At that time practically all
the game birds in the United States were menaced with extirpa-
tion, but during the second decade of the twentieth century
State laws were passed prohibiting the sale of wild game. Such
laws were not only enacted by most of the States, but more
recently a regulation forbidding sale of migratory game birds
was finally promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture, under
the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, thus making illegal the
sale of all native game birds in the markets of the United
States, except such as under proper restrictions may be raised
on game farms and game preserves. The rearing of such birds
under such conditions may eventually restock the markets of
the country with game.

The great demand for game both in this country and Europe
has much depleted the supply of the world's game birds.

1 Mackay, George H.: Auk, Vol. VIII, No. 1, 1891, p. 24.

2 Hornaday, W. T.: Our Vanishing Wild Life, 1913, p. 68.

• Pearson, T. Gilbert: Bird-Lore, Vol. XII, No. 5, September-October, 1910, p. 208.
« Hornaday, W. T.: Our Vanishing Wild Life, 1913, p. 108.

69

Pheasants from India, quails from Africa, tinamous from South
America, lapwings and grouse from Europe, and other species
have appeared in numbers in the principal markets of the
world, and to-day some species of pheasants are almost ex-
tirpated from their native land. If the sale of foreign game
continues many species may become extinct.

Eggs of Sea Birds as Food.

Water birds, such as auks, murres, pelicans, gulls, terns,
ducks and herons, breed in communities on islands in lakes or
along the coasts of all the continents. For centuries it has been
the common custom for men to visit these colonies at the be-
ginning of the nesting season, break all the eggs to insure a
supply of fresh ones, and then about every alternate day to
gather all the new-laid eggs for food. As market demands grew
apace, this egg gathering became a regular business. On the
Atlantic coast of North America, during the latter part of the
last century, all eggs from an inch in diameter upward, from
Labrador to Texas, were taken and sold to consumers or in
public markets. When settlement reached the coast of the
Pacific the eggs of sea birds which formerly had been taken in
some numbers by the Indians were exploited by the whites.
Some idea of the enormous numbers of eggs gathered may be
gained from the statement of H. W. Elliot, that when he first
visited Walrus Island in Behring Sea in July, 1872, six men in
less than three hours loaded to the water's edge with murres'
eggs a small vessel of 4 tons' capacity. Egging was carried on
as a business for nearly fifty years in the Farrallone Islands
off the coast of California. Myriads of sea birds, chiefly gulls
and murres or California guillemots bred on these islands. The
eggs were collected and sold in the markets of San Francisco at
from 12 to 20 cents a dozen during a season of about two
months. It is said that between 1850 and 1856 three to four
million eggs were marketed from these islands. On Laysan
Island, one of the Hawaiian group, the eggs of thousands of
albatrosses nesting there were collected and loaded on the cars
of a narrow-gauge railway and eaten by laborers engaged in
shipping guano from the island. It was customary in most

70

localities along the coast of North America to allow the birds
to hatch some eggs late in the season, but the disregard of this
custom in many instances, and the wholesale killing of the
birds, destroyed or greatly reduced many of the colonies along
the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Unrestricted egging was re-
sponsible for a good part of the great diminution of sea birds in
Labrador. Audubon's story of the Labrador eggers published in
his u Ornithological Biography" clearly exhibits terrible de-
struction among sea birds on the Labrador coast early in the
nineteenth century. The business was finally forbidden by law
both in the United States and Canada, but some illicit egging
is carried on still, even in regions that receive special protection
by wardens.

Feathers of Sea Birds and Wild-fowl for Bedding.

In the colder countries of the world the feathers and down of
waterfowl have been in great demand for centuries as filling for
beds and pillows. Such feathers are perfect non-conductors of
heat, and beds, pillows or coverlets filled with them represent
the acme of comfort and durability. The early settlers of New
England saved for such purposes the feathers and down from
the thousands of wild-fowl which they killed, but as the popu-
lation increased in numbers the quantity thus furnished was in-
sufficient and the people sought a larger supply in the vast
colonies of ducks and geese along the Labrador coast. The
manner in which the feathers and down were obtained, unlike
the method practiced in Europe, did not tend to conserve and
protect the source of supply. In Iceland the natives have con-
tinued to receive for many years a considerable income by
collecting eider down, but there they do not "kill the gdbse
that lays the golden eggs." Ducks line their nests with down
plucked from their own breasts, and that of the eider is par-
ticularly valuable for bedding. In Iceland these birds are so
carefully protected that they have become as tame and un-
suspicious as domestic fowls. In North America, where they
are constantly hunted, they often conceal their nests in the
midst of weeds or bushes; but in Iceland they make their
nests and deposit their eggs in holes dug for them in the sod,

71

near the huts of the inhabitants, or even on the sodded roofs
of these huts. When the first downy lining is removed from
the nest by the collectors the bird replaces it with more down
from her breast. If the second lining is taken it is said that
the male bird then contributes a third. The people never dis-
turb the nest after this, but allow the birds to hatch their eggs
and rear their broods unmolested. Thus a supply of the ducks
is maintained so that the people derive from them an annual
income.

In North America quite a different policy was pursued. The
demand for feathers became so great in the New England
colonies about the middle of the eighteenth century that vessels
were fitted out there for the coast of Labrador for the express
purpose of securing the feathers and down of wild-fowl. Eider
down having become valuable, and these ducks being in the
habit of congregating by thousands on barren islands of the
Labrador coast, the birds became the victims of the ships*
crews. As the ducks molt all their primary feathers at once
in July or August, and are then quite incapable of flight, and
the young birds are unable to fly until well grown, the hunters
were able to surround the helpless birds, drive them together
and kill them with clubs. Otis says that "millions" of wild-
fowl were thus destroyed, and that in a few years their haunts
were so broken up by this wholesale slaughter and their numbers
were so diminished that u feather voyages" became unprofitable
and were given up.1 This practice (followed by the almost
continual egging, clubbing, shooting, etc., by Labrador fisher-
men) may have been a chief factor in the extinction of the
Labrador duck, that species of supposed restricted breeding
range. No doubt had the eider duck been restricted in its
breeding range to the islands of Labrador, it also would have
been exterminated long ago. After the failure of the Labrador
feather voyages the American market was supplied with the
feathers of domestic geese and with eider down imported from
Europe.

> Otis, Amos: Genealogical Notes of Barnstable County [Massachusetts), Vol. I, 1885, p. 187.

72

Feathers for Ornament.

In the midst of modern civilization we still cling tenaciously
to rings, beads and feathers, the ornaments of the savage. The
trade in feathers for adornment has grown to such enormous
proportions that it has furnished employment or partial em-
ployment to hundreds of thousands of people; and the profits
made from the handling, dyeing, "manufacture" and sale of
feathers have run into millions, if not billions of dollars.
Birds of all sizes have contributed their feathers to fashion's
demands, from the lowly duck or chicken of the farmyard to
the giant ostrich, and from the tiny hummingbird, warbler or
kinglet to the regal bird of paradise, the snowy-plumaged egret,
the royal eagle, the giant condor or the long-winged albatross.
This trade has gone on, recklessly slaughtering and extermi-
nating the birds of the world, until public sentiment has at-
tempted to call a halt in many countries, protecting the birds
by law, and forbidding the exportation or the importation of
plumage. Wardens armed with rifles have been placed on guard
over protected bird colonies. Still the slaughter, though
checked to some extent, goes on. Tons of feathers are smug-
gled out of one country and into another, and there is always
a supply at hand for woman's adornment. The scarcity of
some feathers and the difficulty of smuggling them has in-
creased their value in the retail market to much more than
twice their weight in gold.

During the last century there was a great demand for swan's
down, which sold at high prices and was used for trimming fine
fans, cloaks and other articles for women's wear or adornment.
This traffic contributed largely toward the threatened extinc-
tion of the trumpeter swan, the pitiful remnant of which the
Canadian authorities are now trying to save. We have no
record of the early trade in swan skins, when the trumpeter
swan was abundant and bred widely in the Athabasca-Mac-
kenzie region, but the number sold annually by the Hudson
Bay Company decreased from 1,312 in the year 1854 to 122 in
1877. In 1899 the Athabasca output had dwindled to 33 skins.1
The trumpeter swan is now nearly extinct.

1 Preble, E. A.: North American Fauna, No. 27, Bureau of Biological Survey, United States
Department of Agriculture, 1908, pp. 309, 310.

73

It hardly seems possible now that within fifty years the skins
of bluebirds, tanagers, orioles and even swallows were in de-
mand in Massachusetts and were used in some quantities as
millinery ornaments. Within forty years the egrets of the
United States have been almost exterminated, and the gulls
and the terns of the Atlantic coast so reduced in numbers that
at least two species have been nearly extirpated. When I was
in Florida in 1878 immense numbers of egrets were seen in the
swamps and on the lakes, rivers and lagoons of the southern
counties. Even then the plume hunters had begun their ne-
farious work, and ten years later the egrets were nearly all
gone. A remnant of their former vast numbers has been saved
by the wardens of the National Association of Audubon
Societies. The inhuman and revolting cruelty of this business
should have brought about its abolition by the indignant pro-
test of the public. The birds were shot on or near the nests,
the plumes torn from their bleeding backs and the helpless
young left to starve.

Terns were shot down all along the Atlantic coast, and often
their wings were cut off, while the suffering birds were still alive.
Half-naked savages were furnished with cheap guns and sent
into swamp and forest fastnesses in all parts of the world,
wherever birds of desirable plumage could be obtained. Mr.
A. H. Meyer of New York testified that he had seen plume
hunters in Venezuela tear the plumes from living wounded
egrets, leaving them to die of starvation, unable to respond to
the cries of their starving young in the nests above. He said
that he had seen heartless plume hunters tie and prop up
wounded birds as decoys, to attract others, until the terrible
red ants of the country had eaten out the eyes of these wounded
living but helpless birds. In 1909 a band of Japanese, headed
by a German adventurer, raided Laysan Island, then a United
States government bird reservation, and before they were dis-
covered and apprehended they had killed more than 259,000
birds. There were 259,000 pairs of wings found in the hold of
their vessel, with 2J tons of feathers, also some large cases and
several boxes of stuffed birds.1 Many of the albatrosses taken
were so fat that the skin and feathers were likely to be injured

» Pearson, T. G.: The Bird Study Book, 1917, p. 141.

74

by fatty matter after their removal from the birds. A large
number of these birds, therefore, were imprisoned in a great
dry cistern, where they were starved to death to reduce the
fatty tissue and save trouble in cleaning the skins. When the
revenue cutter " Thetis" arrived there were acres of dead bodies
and bones, and about three carloads of wings, feathers and skins.
All the latter were seized, with the exception of a shed full
of wings which were left behind for lack of space to carry them
on the ship.1 The power of the United States government was
not sufficient to protect the islands from another similar raid
later by Japanese, and it is said that practically all the bird
islands in the Pacific at a distance from our coast are thus
periodically raided.

Before the destruction of birds for millinery purposes in the
United States was checked by law and public sentiment,
enormous numbers of birds were destroyed. The millions of
egrets in the country were reduced to a few thousands, and
great quantities of grebes, nesting in western marshes, were
slaughtered. No reliable estimate of the number of birds
killed in the United States for millinery purposes has been
made, but fragmentary reports may give the reader an idea of
the extent of the slaughter and the money involved. About
70,000 bird skins were sent to New York from a small district
on Long Island in about four months. A collector brought back
11,000 skins from a three months' trip. One New York firm
had a contract to supply 40,000 skins to a company in Paris,
France. A dealer during a three months' trip to South Carolina
prepared 11,018 bird skins. A woman milliner went to Cobbs
Island, Virginia, to get birds to fill an order for 40,000 bird
skins. This order practically exterminated the terns then on
the island. Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, now (1921) president^of
the National Association of Audubon Societies, who compiled
his figures from the records and accounts of the feather hunters,
says that 500,000 terns were killed for millinery purposes on
the Sounds of North Carolina and South Carolina in se_ven
years.2 Gunners were hired to kill the birds at 10 cents per
bird. One auction room in London sold in three months 400,000

» Hornaday, W. T.: Our Vanishing Wild Life, 1913, pp. 139-141.
» The Bird Study Book, 1917, p. 141.

75

birds from America, and 350,000 from India, and this was only
one of the many firms in this and other European cities en-
gaged in this business.

After the trade in American birds was largely checked, great
quantities of the skins and feathers of foreign birds continued
to come into American markets. When in 1913 a clause pro-
hibiting the importation of the plumage of wild birds was
introduced into the new tariff bill then pending in the United
States Senate, the Imperial German Charge d'Affaires at Wash-
ington entered a protest, asserting that the proposed prohibition
would entail a serious loss to the German industry of millinery
feathers. He quoted returns from the Consulate General of the
United States, showing that in five years the specified value of
feathers exported to the United States from the Berlin district
alone was $3,079,498.

The tentacles of this vast octopus, the plumage trade,
reached into every land. A list of the wild birds slaughtered
at its behest, many of them in danger of extermination, in-
cludes many of the most remarkable and beautiful of the
feathered gems of the world. Australian lyre birds, South'
American rheas and resplendent trogons, the condor, — the
largest bird that flies, — the wonderful and beautiful pheas-
ants of India and China, the marabou stork of Africa, the
bustards, crowned pigeons, egrets and ibises, and scores more
from many parts of the world, are included in the list. This
enormous remunerative trade will exterminate species after
species, and when one is gone another will be used to take its
place, unless public sentiment can be aroused to secure both
the passage and enforcement of laws forbidding the possession
and sale of the plumage of wild birds everywhere. The plumage
of domestic fowls and that of game birds and ostriches raised
on farms can be so "manufactured" as to take the place of
that of wild birds, if women must wear feathers. The prepa-
ration of the feathers of poultry and ostriches is now an im-
mense and well-recognized industry.

Shooting Birds for Sport.

Most of the hunting of game birds now going on in North
America is done in the name of sport, although this sport sup-

76

plies much nutritious food; also it supports a great trade in
guns, ammunition, boats, dogs, tools, clothing and other sport-
ing goods. It furnishes employment to guides, dog breakers,
gamekeepers, boatmen and professional hunters, and helps to
maintain many country hostelries and seaside hotels. Many
farmers receive money enough for the shooting privileges on
their farms to more than pay their taxes. In England and
Scotland, where there are many game farms and game preserves,
the shooting privileges are valuable and the revenue from them
is considerable. All told, many thousands of families derive
part or all of their support from occupations connected with
catering to the sportsman. The physical benefit which harassed
business men derive from field sports is considerable, and un-
doubtedly many a useful life has been prolonged thereby.

Value of Birds in Domestication.

The domestication of birds has been of inestimable value to
mankind from remote antiquity, and no doubt grew from the
desire of the primitive agriculturist to have constantly at hand
a delicate nourishing food supply. No other animals are capable
of furnishing man with a similarly valuable supply of both meat
and eggs. Thus far, excepting the ostrich, only such species
have been domesticated as belong to those families which when
wild are known as game birds and wild-fowl, and when domesti-
cated, as poultry. These include chickens, turkeys, guinea
fowls, peacocks, pigeons and doves, ducks, geese and swans.
The immense value of these birds to mankind within historic
times cannot be estimated. In the United States alone the
annual worth of poultry products in 1907 had reached nearly
$300,000,000, and they have more than trebled in value since
that time. Mr. Alton E. Briggs of the Boston Produce Ex-
change quotes Mr. Marshall of the United States Bureau of
Markets to the effect that in 1918 the fowls of the United
States produced for market 2,500,000,000 dozens of eggs, and
he asserts that these market eggs alone were easily worth over
$1,000,000,000, to say nothing of the eggs used by the farmers
themselves, or the vast quantity of valuable poultry produced
and marketed. The worth of poultry products consumed annu-

77

ally in Massachusetts alone is estimated at $45,000,000 to $50,-
000,000,* and it is not improbable that the value of the annual
poultry product of the world would reach $25,000,000,000.
When it is considered that in all the centuries but few species
of birds have been domesticated, only one of which, the turkey,
originated in America, it seems probable that the possibilities
of profitable domestication have not yet been exhausted.

Fertility from the Sea. — Immense Value of Guano Deposits.

Bird guano consists mainly of the excreta of fish-eating sea
birds, in which are sometimes intermixed much smaller quantities
of undigested or partially digested fish dropped or regurgitated
by the birds, together with the remains of birds and sea lions
and other mammals. The best guano comes from the Chincha
Islands of Peru. In those nearly rainless regions it retains
a large percentage of its nitrogen, and Dr. Robert Cushman
Murphy remarks that, calculated according to the nitrogen
content, the best Peruvian guano is more than thirty-three
times as effective as barnyard manure.2

Centuries before the discovery of America there existed on
the west coast of the South American continent a civilization
noted for its agriculture, textile industries and architecture.
The intensive agriculture of the Incas, upon which their civiliza-
tion was based, was made possible by the deposits of guano,
and through a wonderful system of agricultural engineering by
which they laid out irrigation works which enabled them to ex-
tend their crop-producing industries far into the naturally arid
wastes. Guano was used even on the mountain terraces two to
three miles above sea level. The Incas wisely conserved the
birds that produced guano. The breeding birds were zealously
guarded, and the wanton destruction of one of them was made
a capital offence, punishable by death. Unfortunately protective
measures were not adopted by the whites, who, on the con-
trary, not only exploited the supply, but destroyed the birds
that produced it. Humboldt returning from his travels in
tropical America in 1804 carried to Europe samples of guano,

1 Bulletin No. 1, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1917, pp. 6, 7.
* The Seacoast and Islands of Peru, Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, Vol. VII, No. 4, Octo-
ber, 1920, p. 245.

78

and first called attention to the value of the immense deposits
on the Chincha Islands. The importance of this announcement
was not realized at that time, but forty years later this same
guano revolutionized methods in agriculture in all civilized
lands, and furnished an immense source of revenue for exploit-
ing corporations and even for nations. The Peruvian govern-
ment depended largely for some years upon the revenue from
this industry for the payment of the interest on the national
debt.1

In 1843, when the great commercial extraction of guano from
these islands began, the material lay in beds, in some cases
more than 100 feet in depth. The supply seemed inexhaustible,
and according to a survey made by the Peruvian government in
1853, there were 12,376,100 tons then available. By 1850 the
price of Peruvian guano in the United States had advanced to
$50 per ton or more. It is said that from 1851 to 1872 more
than 10,000,000 tons of this excellent fertilizer were taken from
one small group of islands, representing an average annual ex-
portation valued at from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000.2

During this period the destruction of the birds and the ex-
traction of the guano were carried on together. Sometimes as
many as fifty or seventy ships of different nations were gathered
around the islands. Slaves were employed to dig and load the
product, while the birds were wantonly killed or driven away.
At times thousands of young birds were driven over the cliffs
to their death merely to get them out of the way. Such a
campaign of destruction and exploitation could have but one
end. Dr. F. A. Lucas asserts that as early as 1879, when he
visited the islands, they had been swept clear of guano birds,
and that he saw no sign anywhere on that coast of the huge
flocks of those species of birds that had been responsible fir
the original guano deposits.

By the close of the last century the deposits on the islands
were so reduced, that the agriculture of Peru itself was threat-
ened. The control of the small remaining supply was largely in
the hands of foreign creditors, and the future of the Peruvian
guano industry looked dark indeed. Since then, however, the

1 Palmer, T. S.: Yearbook, United States Department of Agriculture, 1899, p. 274.
1 Coker, R. E.: Peru's Wealth-producing Birds, National Geographic Magazine, Vol.
XXXVII, No. 6, June, 1920, p. 543.

79

government has adopted a wise system of conservation, includ-
ing rigid protection of the birds. Thereby the greatest of all
modern business undertakings based on the conservation and
protection of wild birds, has been rapidly built up. The prin-
cipal guano-producing birds of these islands are a species of
cormorant, a pelican and two gannets. They are constantly
guarded and protected from their enemies, and now (1921) have
increased within twenty years from a miserable remnant to
enormous numbers. It is estimated that there were in 1913
5,600,000 cormorants on the central Chincha Island alone.
Under the present system the production of guano on these
islands has risen from 25,370 tons in 1909-10 to 80,898 tons in
1917-18. In a letter dated August 24, 1920, Senor Ballen wrote
that it was expected that the output for that year alone would
be 82,000 tons. These figures refer not to the ancient or fossil
guano, now entirely exhausted on these particular islands, but
to the recent product deposited since the policy of conservation
began. It is noted, also, that under this policy the average
nitrogen content of the guano has risen nearly 4 per cent in the
last five or six years. Dr. Coker estimates that the money
value of a single pair of cormorants (Phalacrocorax bougainvillei)
is not less than $15 for the guano that they produce.

For the above facts I am largely indebted to Dr. Murphy,
who has recently investigated the Chincha Island guano in-
dustry on the spot. There are many other guano islands, but
those in rainless regions are of the greatest value, losing little
of the nitrogen content which, elsewhere, rain washes out.
American citizens have filed claims to about seventy-five guano
islands situated mainly in the Pacific or the Caribbean sea.
On some of them deposits have proved worthless, but guano
valued at more than $3,000,000 has been imported to the
United States from some of these islands. Citizens of other
countries have exploited other guano islands in various parts of
the world, but the Peruvian Islands, under wise management,
will continue to be the greatest guano-producing station in the
world.

Here ends our survey of the value of birds to man from a
material standpoint. What follows is taken in substance from
"Useful Birds," with such changes as afterthought has dictated.

80

ESTHETIC, SENTIMENTAL AND EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF BIRDS.

Thus far in this bulletin birds have been regarded solely from
the standpoint of "enlightened self-interest." They have been
looked at strictly from the utilitarian point of view, and it has
been demonstrated that their contributions to man's material
welfare are very considerable. Now let us turn for a moment
from the contemplation of such utility of birds as money can
measure to "some of the higher and nobler uses which birds
subserve to man."

At once we step from the beaten path of economic ornithology
into a realm made sacred by art, letters, sentiment and poetry,

— into intellectual fields where the fascinating study of birds
may either provide delightful experiences or may lead to the
classroom, the museum, the laboratory or the closet of the
systematist. Wherever it may lead, this phase of our subject
is important and demands the most serious consideration. Al-
though presented last, its benefactions should be reckoned first
among the items which go to make up the sum of our indebted-
ness to the feathered race.

The beauty of birds, the music of their songs, the weird
wildness of their calls, the majesty of their soaring flight, and
the mystery of their migrations always have been subjects of
absorbing interest to poets, artists and lovers of nature. Promi-
nent among the undying memories of men are mental pictures
of the birds of childhood, their coming in the spring, their nest-
ing and their chosen haunts. Many an exiled emigrant longs
in vain to hear again the outpouring melody of the skylark, as
it soars above the fields of England. Many a New England
boy, shut in by western mountains, yearns for the bubbling,
joyous song of the bobolink in June meadows. The characters
and traits of birds, their loves and battles, their skill in home
building, their devotion to their young, their habits and ways,

— all are of exceeding interest to mankind. Birds have become
symbolic of certain human characteristics, and therefore some
common species have come to be so interwoven with our art
and literature that their names are almost household words.
What biblical scholar is not familiar with the birds of the Bible?
Shakespeare makes over six hundred references to birds or bird

81

life. Much of our best literature would lose some of its charm
and appeal were it shorn of poetic allusions to birds.

Birds often have inspired the poets. Bryant's lines "To a
Waterfowl" and Shelley's "Skylark" each exhibit a phase of
noble inspiration. These are but instances of the stimulating
power exerted on the mind of man by the bird and its associa-
tions. Some of the grandest poems ever written have been
dependent on their author's observations of birds for some touch
of nature which has helped to render them immortal. Thus
Gray, in his famed "Elegy Written in a Country Church-
yard":—

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

Who, reared in a country home, can fail as he reads these
lines to recall the twittering of the swallows under the spreading
rafters in the cool of early morning? The mental contemplation
of that peaceful scene, the train of tender recollections of the
time of youth and innocence, all tending toward better impulses
and higher aspirations, are largely due to the mention of the
familiar bird in its association with the home of childhood. Is
not literature the richer for the following lines of Longfellow, in
his "Birds of Passage"?

Above in the light

Of the star-lit night,

Swift birds of passage wing their flight

Through the dewy atmosphere.

I hear the beat

Of their pinions fleet,

As from the land of snow and sleet,

They seek a southern lea.

How much of life and color the presence of birds adds to the
landscape! The artist appreciates this. What marine view is
complete without its sea birds in flight? How much of life and
action a flock of wild-fowl add to a lake or river scene!

82

Birds are a special boon to child life, and a never-ending
source of entertainment to many children who live upon isolated
farms, where in summer or in winter the observation of birds
adds greatly to the rational enjoyment of existence.

It is not a far cry from the poet to the philosopher, who also
sees a value in birds for the opportunity they afford for the
culture of the intellect. Every page of the book of nature is
educational; but, as Dr. Coues says, there is no fairer or more
fascinating page than that devoted to the life history of a bird.
The systematic study of birds develops both the perceptive
faculties and the analytical powers of the mind. The study of
the living bird afield is rejuvenating to both mind and body.
The outdoor use of eye, ear and limb necessitated by field
work tends to fit both the body and mind of the student for
the practical work of life, since it develops both members and
faculties. The beauty and grace of birds appeal to the eye;
their activity is inspiriting; their joyousness is contagious; and
their finest songs awaken the spirit of praise and devotion.
There is no purer joy in life than that which comes to those
who, rising in the dusk of early morning, welcome the approach
of day with all its bird voices. The nature lover who listens to
the song of the wood thrush at dawn, — an anthem of calm,
serene, spiritual joy sounding through the dim woods, — hears
it with feelings akin to those of the devotee whose being is
thrilled by the grand and sacred music of the sanctuary. And
he who in the still forest at evening harkens to the exquisite
tones of the hermit, — that voice of nature expressing in sweet
cadences her pathos and her ineffable mystery, — experiences
amid the falling shades of night emotions which must humble,
chasten and purify even the noblest of the sons of men.

The uplifting influence that birds may thus exert upon tile
lives of men constitutes their greatest value and charm. A
growing appreciation of the esthetic and the educational value
of birds has sent many cultured folk to the woods, fields and
shores. People are turning toward nature study, and the ob-
servation of birds in the field is one of the most popular mani-
festations of an increased and abiding interest in animate
Nature. Students who have become familiar with the common
birds of their own vicinity long for new fields and new birds.

83

Let a well-known writer describe in print any locality in Massa-
chusetts where rare or interesting birds are to be found, and
soon some of his readers will be upon the ground.

Possibly, however, the greatest boon that the study of birds
can confer upon man is seen in the power of the bird-lover to
keep his spirit young. One who in early years is attracted to
the study of birds will find that with them he always renews
his youth. Each spring the awakening year encompasses him
with a flood of joyous bird life. Old friends are they who greet
him, and they come as in the days of childhood, bringing
tidings of good cheer. Years roll on, the days of youth are
gone, the head becomes bowed with sorrow and frosted by the
snows of time, the strong hand trembles, the friends of youth
have passed away, — but each returning spring the old familiar
bird songs come back to us, unchanged by the passing years.
Let us, then, teach our children to love and protect the birds,
that these familiar friends of their childhood may remain to
cheer them with song and beauty when, toward the sunset of
life, the shadows will grow long upon the pathway.

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