4 WyoMING Birrps. 
been very destructive to pear orchards in Maryland and 
New Jersey. I learned that the birds had been visiting 
these trees for about two weeks. At the time of my return 
they had evidently disposed of most of the last brood of the 
season, for although they were still finding a good many on 
the day of my return, they found very few afterwards, 
though they visited the trees daily for a week longer. These 
insects hibernate on the trees by hiding in the crevices be- 
tween the twigs and are thus exposed to the attacks of birds 
all winter.”’ 
4. From Special Bulletin No. 3, University of Nebraska, 
by Bruner, I take the following interesting computations : 
“In nearly every case where the food habits of our birds 
have been carefully studied, we find that the good done far 
exceeds the possible harm that might be inflicted by our 
birds. Allowing twenty-five insects per day as an average 
diet for each individual bird, and estimating that we have 
about one and one-half birds to the acre, or in round num- 
bers, 75,000,000 birds in Nebraska, there would be required 
1,875,000,000 insects for each day’s rations. Again, esti- 
mating the number of insects required to fill a bushel at 
120,000, it would take 15,625 bushels of insects to feed our 
birds for a single day, or 937,500 bushels for sixty days, or 
2,343,750 bushels for one hundred and fifty days.” 
When put in this way, the economic value of the birds is 
easily comprehended as a real fact. 
5. From an article by Dr. Sylvester Judd, of the U. S. 
Department of Agriculture, these figures are taken to show 
the amount of weed seeds destroyed by seed-eating birds: 
“Prof. F. E. L. Beal, who has carefully studied this sub- 
ject in the Upper Mississippi Valley, has estimated the 
amount of weed seed eaten by the Tree Sparrow (Spizella 
monticola), Junco (Junco hyemalis), and other Sparrows 
