THE ALLIES OF THE PIGEON 399 



should receive encouragement by the owners of the farms. Cer- 

 tain species, such as flycatchers, swallows, and warblers, prey to 

 some extent upon useful parasitic insects ; but on the whole the 

 habits of these insectivorous birds are productive of considerable 

 good to man. Together with the vireos, cuckoos, and woodpeckers 

 (exclusive of the sapsuckers), they are the most valuable con- 

 servators of foliage on the farms. The quail, meadow-lark, 

 orchard-oriole, mocking bird, house-wren, grasshopper-sparrow, 

 and chipping sparrow feed on insects of the cultivated fields, 

 particularly during the breeding-season, when the nestlings of 

 practically all species eat enormous numbers of caterpillars and 

 grasshoppers. 



Bird Protection. The first steps toward bird protection 

 were taken at the instance of the sportsmen, in whose inter- 

 est laws were passed prohibiting the destruction of game 

 birds except at stated seasons of the year. These laws were 

 in the interest, too, of the hunter who shot for the market, 

 since they secured for the birds freedom from the molesta- 

 tion of man during the period of bringing up their young, 

 without which protection their extinction would, in many 

 cases, have been only a matter of time. Of late years great 

 interest has been aroused in ornithology, and the value of 

 birds to agriculture or as scavengers has been more generally 

 recognized. People generally have begun to take pleasure 

 in having birds about, for their beauty of form, or color, or 

 movement, and for their song, so that an aesthetic argument 

 has been added to the others. The separate states have 

 shown the effect of this general awakening by the improve- 

 ment of old laws or the passage of new ones for the protection 

 of the insectivorous song birds and other birds which have 

 not been proved to be directly injurious. As one result of the 

 interest in the study of birds in the schools several states 

 have set apart Bird Day, which is observed after the fashion 

 of Arbor Day, and oftentimes in connection with it. The 

 first Bird Day was observed in Pennsylvania, May 4, 1894. 



