THE VERTEBRATES: BIRDS 235 



the Division. It has been distinctly shown that a great 

 majority of birds are chiefly beneficial to man by eating 

 noxious insects and the seeds of weeds. Most birds com- 

 monly reputed to be harmful, and for that reason shot by 

 farmers and fruit-growers, have been proved to do much 

 more good than harm. Some few birds have been proved 

 to be, on the whole, harmful. An investigation of the food 

 habits of the crow, a bird of ill-repute ^mong farmers, based 

 on an examination of 909 stomachs, sr-^vs that about 29 per 

 cent of the food for the year consists of grain, of which corn 

 constitutes something more than 21 per cent, the greatest 

 quantity being eaten in the three winter months. All of 

 this must be either waste grain picked up in fields and roads, 

 or corn stolen from cribs and shocks. May, the month of 

 sprouting corn, shows a slight increase over the other spring 

 and summer months. On the other hand, the loss of grain 

 is offset by the destruction of insects. These constitute 

 more than 23 per cent of the crow's yearly diet, and the 

 larger part of them are noxious. The remainder of the 

 crow's food consists of wild fruit, seeds, and various animal 

 substances which may on the whole be considered neutral. 

 The slaughter of birds for millinery purposes has become 

 so fearful and apparent in recent years that a strong move- 

 ment for their protection has been inaugurated. Rapacious 

 egg-collecting, legislation against birds wrongly thought to 



Oo O- O O O J O 



be harmful to grains and fruit, and the selfish wholesale kill- 

 ing of birds by professional and amateur hunters, help in 

 the work of destruction. Apart from the brutality of such 

 slaughter, and the extermination of the most beautiful and 

 enjoyable of our animal companions, this destruction works 

 strongly against our material interests. Birds are the natural 

 enemies of insect pests, and the destroying of the birds 

 means the rapid increase and spread, and the enhanced 

 destructive power of the pests. It is asserted by investi- 

 gators that during the past fifteen years the number of our 



