310 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



creatures, that are almost incapable of locomotion, below the frost 

 line in the fall, to carry them out in the springtime, and to place 

 them on growing things, where they can secure needed nourishment, 

 the ant getting from the aphid an excretion known as honey dew. 

 Just as the farmer keeps his herds, his cattle, his sheep, his pigs, for 

 profit, so the ant keeps and cares for and defends its army of honey 

 dew producers. Along comes the flicker and destroys the ant, with 

 the result that the aphid having lost its protector, or caretaker, falls 

 a ready victim to some of its man enemies, or dies of starvation. 

 No farmer can afford to have a flicker killed on his property. 



Again, the cuckoo, one of our shy birds, one that builds its nest 

 in thickets and moves about so quietly as to be but seldom seen by 

 men, and the oriole, that builds its nest in the open, attaching its 

 hanging house to the tip of the most delicate swaying branch of the 

 elm, by the roadside, or near our homes, constantly in view and 

 singing almost continuously during daylight hours, have the same 

 food preferences. These two birds, of apparently widely diverging 

 dispositions, are the only two birds in this State that make a spe- 

 cialty of destroying hairy caterpillars, of which the caterpillars of 

 the brown-tailed moth are a striking example. They seem to have 

 been intended by the great Creator to do a work for you that but 

 few birds try to do, or could do, if they did try. 



Audubon, writing of this disposition of these tv\'o birds long ago 

 said, that an examination of the stomach of either the cuckoo or the 

 oriole, during the summertime will show same to be lined with hair. 

 And this was so ; but the hair in the stomach of these birds was not 

 a growth of the stomach, but, instead, was the hair of the cater- 

 pillar that had fastened itself in the lining of the stomach of the 

 bird and remained there until dissolving by the juices of the stomach. 

 You get a splinter into your flesh, and soon there is inflammation, 

 followed by suppuration. Nature is trying to throw out the offensive 

 substance and unless this is done, there may be serious trouble. One 

 hair in the lining of the stomach or in the stomach of the great 

 majority of birds would surely cause trouble, and many hairs, so af- 

 fixed, would undoubtedly lead to serious trouble, perhaps death. 



These two birds appear to have been created to do a special work 

 for you, that other birds cannot do, and it is just so with all our 

 birds; some on the ground, some on the trunks of trees, some in the 

 branches, some feeding on insects found in one part of a tree, some 

 on another kind of tree, some in the air, some in the water, but each 

 family and species, no diff'erence where found, having a specialty, 

 and doing a work for you that no other bird tries to do. And just as 

 the community in which yuu live is prosperous because of many men 

 doing many things, so the bird world means much or little because 

 of the presence in reasonable numbers of a variety of birds, rather 

 than a large number of any species of bird, each one doing its own 

 particular work. 



When the farmer and his wife, his sons and his daughters, under- 

 stand what the birds are doing for them and see to it that birds are 

 accorded that protection they deserve around their premises; when 

 houses are put up for the bluebird and the wren and the nuthatch, 

 and such other birds as will live in houses; when birds are fed during 

 the wintertime as they need to be and should be; then, indeed, will 

 the dawn of a better day be at hand, and we can well say, figuratively 



