134 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



the water, but at the sound of the whistle giving the signal to dump, they arose in 

 clouds and clustered thickly over the wake of each of the eleven scows to feed on 

 the vegetable and animal matter thrown overboard. It was a most impressive 

 object lesson in the economic value of these birds, which, until recently, have been 

 destroyed in enormous numbers for millinery purposes. 



In our interior States, Franklin's Gull, the Ring-billed Gull, and Black Tern feed 

 largely on grasshoppers at certain seasons, and it is their habit to follow the plough 

 in search of the grubs it exposes. A common sight in parts of the west, therefore, 

 is a flock of Gulls and Terns hovering thick about the ploughman. 



"The Snipe, Sandpipers, Plovers, Phalaropes, Curlews, etc.," Prof. Lawrence 

 Bruner remarks,* " are great destroyers of insects. Moving, as many of them do, 

 in great flocks and spreading out over the meadows, pastures and hillsides, as well as 

 among cultivated fields, they do a large amount of careful police service in arresting 

 culprits among the insects. They even pry them out of burrows and crevices 

 in the earth where these creatures lurk during the daytime, only to come forth 

 after nightfall to destroy vegetation. The large flocks of Eskimo Curlew that 

 formerly passed through Eastern Nebraska did magnificent work during years when 

 the Rocky Mountain locust was with us, as did also the equally large flocks of 

 Golden Plover. The Bartramian Sandpiper [Field or Upland Plover] even now is 

 a great factor each summer in checking the increasing locusts on our prairies." 



LAND BIRDS. 

 GROUSE AND QUAIL. Family Gallinae. 



Ruffed Grouse : Partridge (Bouasa umbcllus). — " Of six specimens examined 

 two had eaten 24 caterpillars ; one, the grub of a beetle, one, 2 grasshoppers, one 7 

 harvest-men ; one, fruit ; one, foliage ; one, seeds ; one, partridge berries ; and three, 

 buds. 



" A young chicken [Partridge], probably not over a week old, had in its stomach 

 13 caterpillars, the grub of a beetle and 7 harvest-men." f 



While Partridges often feed on the buds of trees it does not appear that the 

 habit is an injurious one, a certain amount of pruning being not undesirable. 



Quail : Bob-White {Coliims virginianus). — " The Eastern Quail or Bob-White," 

 writes Dr. Judd,;}: "does much good by destroying weed seeds in fields where grain 

 has been cut antl a rank growth of weeds has taken its place. Seeds of rib grass, 



*BircIs in their Relation to Agriculture. Proc. Nebraska Ornithologists' Union, 1901, p. 21. 

 f King, Economic Relations of Wisconsin Birds. Geology of Wisconsin, I, 591. 

 J Birds as Weed Destroyers. Year Book, Dept. of Agriculture. 1898, p. 231. 



