968' Rural School Leaflet. 



destroyed in Utah by the myriads of crickets which came down from 

 the mountains, and the second year's crops were rapidly disappearing, 

 the settlers were saved from actual starvation by the thousands of 

 gulls that descended upon th6 fields and devoured the crickets. It 

 was looked upon as a heaven-sent miracle; as a matter of fact, many 

 such instances could be cited. It was but the same process which 

 is going on about us every day of the year and which we do not realize 

 until for some reason it is checked and we are overwhelmed with 

 insects. 



Nor is it from insects alone that our crops have suffered and again 

 been protected by the birds. Among new plants introduced into this 

 country, some were brought in through either mistake or ignorance, that 

 soon got beyond the control of the colonists. Pinding conditions here so 

 much more favorable to their growth than in the old country, they spread 

 rapidly, soon became obnoxious, and to-day are known as weeds. But 

 rapidly as these have spread and become a menace to our agriculture, 

 it is not a circumstance to what would have happened or still would 

 happen were we to drive away the birds. Think of the hundreds or 

 even thousands of seeds produced by each plant. What would happen 

 if all were to grow and reproduce themselves? But as long as we have 

 the birds we need feel little danger. All of our sparrows together with 

 many other birds are primarily seed eaters, and many live almost 

 altogether on the seeds of weeds. From the stomach of a single Bob- 

 White Dr. Judd took five thousand seeds of pigeon grass. If this repre- 

 sented a single meal of one bird, we can readily understand why our 

 weeds are no worse than they are. 



The hawks and owls have perhaps been persecuted most of any 

 of our native birds because of their occasional visits to the poultry yard ; 

 yet were it not for these birds we should be so overrun with mice and 

 other small mammals that life would be unendurable. History is full 

 of accounts of mouse plagues which have finally been conquered by 

 large flights of owls. In certain parts of New England to-day, in large 

 part owing to the scarcity of hawks and owls, field mice have become so 

 abundant that young fruit trees cannot be grown unless protected from 

 them by artificial means. In sections of the West, partly because of 

 the destruction of hawks and owls, jack rabbits and gophers have become 

 so abundant that organized efforts have to be made to destroy them. 

 In Pennsylvania some years ago the thousands of dollars paid for bounties 

 on the heads of hawks and owls was but a trifle as compared to the cost 

 of the ravages of the rodents following their destruction. It is only in 

 comparatively recent years that we have come to realize that all birds are 



