Birds in Relation to Agriculture in New York State 1779 



increase of insects, especially because by their freedom of flight they are 

 quickly mobilized to points where food suddenly becomes abimdant — as 

 happened this year by the outbreak of grasshoppers and army worms. 



Another example of this occurred in Utah in 1848, when the Mormon 

 settlers were saved from actual starvation by the thousands of giills that 

 flocked to their fields to feed on the hordes of crickets which had completely 

 destroyed their first year's crops and were fast consuming the planting 

 of the second year. In describing the advent of the gulls, an eyewitness. 

 Honorable Geo. Q. Cannon, says: " Black crickets came down by mil- 

 lions and destroyed our grain crops ; promising fields of wheat in the morning 

 were by evening as smooth as a man's hand, — -devoured by crickets .... 

 At this juncture sea gulls came by hundreds and thousands, and before the 

 crops were entirely destroyed these gulls destroyed the insects, so that our 

 fields were entirely freed from them. . ." It was regarded by some of 

 the settlers as a heaven-sent miracle, and in the past year (19 13) an elabo- 

 rate monument and fountain were erected in Salt Lake City " to the gulls 

 that saved the settlers from starvation." 



Similar services were rendered by birds during the locust invasions fol- 

 lowing the settlement of the Mississippi valley, when all birds, large and 

 small, fell to feeding on grasshoppers. The value of the birds in saving 

 the crops was evidenced in letters written by farmers in answer to ques- 

 tions sent them regarding the work of the birds. The following is quoted 

 verbatim : 



Dear Sir. — In answer to your question about birds and locusts, I must say this: 

 every farmer that shoots birds must be a fool. I had wheat this last spring on new 

 breaking. The grasshoppers came out apparently as thick as the wheat itself, and 

 indeed much thicker. I gave up the field for lost. Just then great numbers of plover 

 came, and flocks of blackbirds and some quail, and commenced feeding upon this field. 

 They cleaned out the locusts so well that I had at least three fourths of a crop, and I 

 know that without the birds I would not have had any. I know other farmers whose 

 wheat was saved in the same way. 



S. E. GOODMORE 



Fremont, Nebraska. 



In this connection the quantity of food that birds can eat is convincing. 

 Few persons realize how much food birds require in order to maintain their 

 ordinary activities. The bird's temperature is much higher than that 

 of man, and its life processes go on with correspondingly increased rapidity. 

 It requires but thirty minutes for some foods to pass entirely through a 

 bird's alimentary canal, and all foods are assimilated and the residue 

 excreted within two and one half hours. Since birds in a natural state 

 ^at continuously, we can consider the quantity eaten as the equivalent 

 of about eight full meals every day. In the work of the Biological Survey 

 at Washington to determine the economic value of the different species 

 of birds, many thousands of birds' stornachs have beei; eji^mined. Fr§- 



