No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 311 



speaking, ''The winter is over and gone and the voice of the turtle 

 is heard in the land." 



As an illustration, read what Edward Howe Forbush, the lead- 

 ing Economic Ornithologist of New England, if not of the world, re- 

 ports under date of August 10, 1914: 



"I have been looking over the destructive work of the army worm in 

 this State. While the worms have been quite destructive in Wareham, 

 Massachusetts, they have done no harm at all on my farm. In fact, 

 you would never know from the appearance of vegetation that there 

 was a worm on the place. I have taken extra pains this year to at- 

 tract the birds, and they have eaten a great many of worms. Thirty 

 or forty rods away from my place, the worms are beginning to be 

 destructive, and in other parts of the town they have done a good 

 deal of harm. They have done no appreciable injury on other farms 

 where I have put up nesting-boxes in quantities. In Martha's Vine- 

 yard, the army-worms have cut corn crops to the ground. It is rather 

 significant that the worms have done the most harm where poisons 

 have been used to check them. Where no poison has been used, and 

 where the birds have been attracted, the worms (although very numer- 

 ous) have not done very much harm. On the State reservation, where 

 the Heath hen has been protected, and where a great many nesting- 

 boxes were put up this year, birds were very plentiful, as the boxes 

 were nearly all occupied, and they were feeding on the army worm in 

 large numbers. Recently I saw here quite a number of Heath hens 

 apparently feeding on the army worm. Where poisoned bran was used 

 in trenches to kill the worms on a large estate formerly owned by 

 Professor Shaler, very few birds were seen, and we had several re- 

 ports that dead birds had been found along the trenches, but I got 

 there about a week too late and did not see any personally. I hear 

 that a good many blackbirds and robins have been poisoned and that 

 quail have disappeared where the poison has been used." 



Quail are among the few birds that destroy potato bugs, and for 

 this reason alone their presence should be encouraged on every farm. 

 In addition to this, they undoubtedly destroy untold numbers of 

 other insects and vast quantities of weed seeds, and will surely make 

 a full return to the farmer who may scatter feed for them during that 

 time when the world is covered with ice and snow, when poor Bob- 

 white and his family are suifering from hunger and about to die of 

 starvation. A little grain placed where these poor dying birds can 

 get it will mean more to them than the expressions of sympathy that 

 could be extended to them by all the people of the county in which 

 they are located. Put yourself in their place and think of what cold 

 and hunger would mean to you. A piece of suet or tallow, or a shin- 

 bone of a freshly killed beef, fastened to the trees around your home 

 or in the orchard will surely be appreciated by the hairy and downy 

 woodpeckers, commonly known as sajjsuckers, whose specialty is the 

 destruction of the codling moth, and the chickadees, and nuthatches, 

 and other winter birds, that, through the destruction of harmful in- 

 sects and their larvae, overlooked by the summer birds, will repay 

 many times over any outlay of either time or money you may make in 

 this direction. I know but little about the structure of birds, or 

 how many feathers each species may have in its wing; but do know 

 our wild birds are necessary to your happiness and success as farmers 

 in Pennsylvania, and I beg of you to help the birds to help you. 



Ornithologists, for reason of better understanding and study, 

 divide the wild bird world into orders, families, genii, species, and 

 sub-species, etc. One of the orders is known as "Raptores," and in- 



