ARBORICULTURE. 



II 



United States Department of Agriculture, has 

 prepared a report for the Department, in which 

 he sets out at great length facts to support the 

 assertion that the animal loss on farm products 

 in the United States occasioned by destructive 

 insects aggregate $700,000,000. "In no other 

 country in the world," he says, "do insects im- 

 pose a heavier tax on the farm products." The 

 losses, it is averred, resulting from the depre- 

 dations of insects on all the plant products of 

 the soil, both in their growing and in their 

 stored state, exceed the entire expenditures of 

 the national government, including the pension 

 roll and the maintenance of the army and navy. 

 This is a startling and appalling statement, and 

 forces the inquiry. What can we do to prevent 

 this wholesale destruction of that which is es- 

 sential to our very existence ? The first answer 

 of those who have given serious thought to the 

 matter is. Preserve our insectiverous birds. 

 And why? 



We have already seen that these insect pests 

 are found everywhere doing their destructive 

 work. It is also true that we have the birds 

 everywhere to hold these insect pests in check 

 and destroy them. As Mr. Frank M. Chapman, 

 who perhaps is our most distinguished living 

 ornithologist, has well said : "In the air, swal- 

 lows and swifts are coursing to and fro, ever 

 in pursuit of the insects which constitute their 

 sole food. When they retire, the night-hawks 

 and whip-poor-wills take up the chase, catching 

 moths and other nocturnal insects which would 

 escape day-flying birds. The fly-catchers lie in 

 wait, darting from ambush at passing prey, and 

 with a suggestive click of the bill returning to 

 their post. The warblers, light, active crea- 

 tures, flutter about the terminal foliage, and 

 with almost the skill of a hummingbird peck 

 insects from leaf or blossom. The vireos pa- 

 tiently explore the under sides of leaves and 

 odd nooks and corners to see that no skulker 

 escapes. The woodpeckers, nut-hatches and 

 creepers attend to the tree trunks and limbs 

 examining carefully each inch of bark for in- 

 sects, eggs and larvae, or excavating for the ants 

 and borers they hear at work within. On the 

 ground the hunt is continued by the thrushes, 

 sparrows and other birds, who feed upon the 

 innumerable forms of terrestrial insects. Few 

 places in which insects exist are neglected ; even 

 some species which pass their earlier stages or 

 entire lives in the water are preyed upon by 

 -aquatic birds." 



The third class of destructive pests to be con- 

 sidered are the rodents. These belong to the 

 large order of animals having two large incisor 

 leeth in each jaw, separated from the molar 

 teeth by an empty space, and are gnawing ani- 

 mals. Rats, mice, woodchucks, rabbits, musk- 

 rats and beavers belong to this order. Every 

 well-informed person knows how rapidly these 

 animals increase, and how destructive they are 

 to vegetation. In Australia the progeny of a 

 few pairs of imported rabbits have overrun the 

 country, its vegetation has been threatened with 

 utter destruction, and millions of dollars have 

 been spent on an effort to get rid of the pest, 

 and the warfare yet goes on. In this country, 

 if not kept in check, they are among our most 

 destructive pests, and especially is this so in our 

 vineyards and orchards, where they do so much 

 damage in girdling our vines and trees. Rats 

 and mice are equally destructive. Owls, hawks 

 and shrike* are our most effective aids in de- 

 stroying these pests and keeping them in check. 



It was Gilbert White, of Selborne, the Eng- 

 lish clergyman and naturalist of the eighteenth 

 century, who directed attention to the fact that 

 the owls destroyed many rodents. Much has 

 been said about hunting with a camera and 

 studying the birds with a field glass. Gilbert 

 White studied them with sympathetic eyes as he 

 tramped through his parish, "an assemblage of 

 hill, dale, woodlands, heath and water." Near 

 by his parish house stood a tree, with a cavity, 

 in which lived a pair of owls. He noticed a 

 large quantity of pellets at the root of the tree 

 which had been regurgitated by the owls. He 

 examined them, and discovered that the owls 

 had destroyed great quantities of mice and 

 other rodents. Since then his observations have 

 been confirmed by many naturalists. In the city 

 of Washington two hundred pellets were taken 

 from beneath the nest of a barn owl and exam- 

 ined, and found to contain four hundred and 

 fifty-four skulls, of which two hundred and 

 twenty-five were meadow mice, two pine mice, 

 one hundred and seventy-nine house mice, 

 twenty rats, six jumping mice, twenty shrews, 

 one star-nosed mole, and one English sparrow. 

 In the Department of Agriculture at Wash- 

 ington, forty-nine stomachs of the red-legged 

 hawk were examined, and it was found that 

 forty of them contained mice, and five of them 

 contained such small rodents as rabbits, gohpers, 

 weasels and shrews. In eighty-eight stomachs 

 of the loggerhead shrike, only seven birds were 



