Page 6 



BETTER FRUIT 



June, ip^o 



Birds — Their 



BIHDS Ikivc :i (k-finilo place I" fill 

 in the c'cononiy of nature. 'I'hey 

 are the principal check on insect 

 life. l-di- xears the experts of the 

 I'nited .Stales Biological Survey have 

 heeii niakinj^ tests to determine which 

 hirils aie more useful to man. lliese 

 invesligalions have shown that with 

 rare exceptions birds are useful every- 

 where and that without their help suc- 

 cessful ajiriculture would be impossible. 



About thirteen thousand species of 

 birds are known to science; twelve 

 hun(h-ed of these species inhabit the 

 I'nited States. We find the sparrows, 

 thrushes, wrens and many others, 

 which feed on insects in or near the 

 ground. Others, such as woodpeckers 

 and sapsuckers are arboreal in their 

 habits, preying on the many kinds of 

 insects which infest our orchards and 

 forest trees. 



The bark of trees forms a favorite 

 .shelter for numerous insects. The 

 wrens, nuthatches, warblers and creep- 

 ers, with the sharpest of eyes and 

 slenderest of bills detect our foes and 

 dislodge them from crevice and 

 cranny. The air is full of flying in- 

 sects in spring and summer. It is the 

 swallows, the purple martins and the 

 swifts which take care of these. At 

 nighttime the whippoorwills, night- 

 hawks and chuckwills-widow keep up 

 the good work while the swallows and 

 martins sleep. 



Thus, every family of birds plays its 

 own i)art in the warfare against insects, 

 and by so doing contributes to man's 

 welfare. When the c|uail eats Texas 

 fever carrying ticks (which southern 

 quails do) ; when the killdeer and other 

 shore birds eat hundreds of larva of 

 the malaria and yellow fever carrying 

 mostpiitoes; when a nighthawk's eve- 

 ning lunch consists of live hundred of 

 the adult mostiuitoes; they contribute 

 a great benefit to public health. 



The economic value of birds to man 

 lies in the service they render in 

 preventing the undue increase of in- 

 sects, in devouring small rodents, in 

 destroying the seeds of harmful plants, 

 and in acting as scavengers. 



Mr. E. H. Forbush, ornithcdogist of 

 the board of agriculture of Massachu- 

 setts, states that the crops of four 

 chickadees contained 1,028 eggs of the 

 cankerworm. The stomach of four 

 other birds of the same species con- 

 tained about (500 eggs and IO.t fenuile 

 moths of the cankerworm. The average 

 number of eggs found in 20 of these 

 moths was 185, and it is estimated that 

 a chickadee may eat 30 female canker- 

 worm moths per day during the 2.t days 

 which these moths crawl up trees, it 

 follows that in this iieriod each chicka- 

 dee would destroy 1,38,750 eggs of this 

 noxious insect. 



The benefit derived b\ having the 

 seed of noxious weeds destroyed by our 

 feathered friends cannot be overesti- 

 mated. From late fall to early spring 

 seeds form the only food of certain 

 bird.s, and every keeper of cage-birds 



Practical Benefit to Horticulture 



By George A. Blair 



can II dize how many seeds a bird may 100 pounds of weed seed. The natural 



eat in a day. Thus, while the ehicka- life of a tpiail is about ten years, so 



(lees, nulhalches, woodi)eckers and that each of these birds may hi' su])- 



sonii- other winter birds are ridding tlie posed to eat during its lifetime 7,500,000 



treis of myriads of insects' eggs and insects and ()0,(IO(l,000 weed seeds. Yet 



larvaae, the granivorous birds are reap- there are thousands of men who delight 



ing a crop of seeds which, if left to to go out in the fall and kill every 



germinate, would cause a heavy loss to (piail they can find! A dead (piail is 



our agricultural interests. worth in the market possibly $1. A man 



I'he service rendered to man by birds may eat it in a few minutes and forget 

 in killing the small rodents so destruct- it. What a shameful ending for such a 

 ive to crops is performed by hawks useful and so valuable a friend of man- 

 and owls — birds which the uninformed kind. A few years ago there were mil- 

 consider enemies. The truth is that, lions of (|uail all over the southern, 

 with two exception.s — the sharpskinned middle and eastern states; today they 

 and cooper's hawk — all our common are almost extinct everywhere, 

 hawks and owls are beneficial. A ijair of Bob Whites in domestica- 



Here are a few records as to the value tion have produced 100 eggs in a season, 



of certain bug eaters: A (piail killed Five hens laid an average of 05 eggs 



in a cotton field in Texas had in its apiece. To hold the insects in check 



crop the remains of 127 cotton boll and to destroy the weed seeds we need 



weevils. Another killed in a potato to have our gardens, fields, pastures 



field in Pennsylvania had in its crop and roadsides literally alive with these 



the remains of 101 potato bugs. An- useful birds. A prairie chicken killed 



other killed in a Kansas wheat field in a cotton field in Texas had in its 



had in its crop the remains of over crop the remains of over ,300 cotton 



1,200 chinchbugs. boll weevils. A few years ago there 



Mrs. Margaret M. Nice, of Cambridge, were millions of prairie chickens in 



Massachusetts, has made an exhaustive all the states. Today they are abso- 



stud>- of the food of Bob White. In- lutely extinct in several states and on 



stead of killing the birds and analyzing the verge of their finish in all others, 



the contents of the crop, she has An ornithologist who has carefully 



worked by the living feed-test method. studied the rufl'ed grouse (commonly 



That is, she has offered different foods called pheasant or partridge) has esti- 



to the birds and has counted and mated that each adult bird of this .spe- 



weighed the amount eaten. The total cies eats two and one-half bu.shels of 



food for a day forms a natural unit in insects every sunmier. There are 



this work, and a great many of these nearly 200 species of insects that injure 



daily dietaries have been studied. ai)i)le trees or apples, and nearly as 



among them we may quote a few: 1,350 large a number that attack pear trees, 



house flies eaten in one day by a lay- peach trees, plum trees and cherry 



ing hen, along with weed seeds and trees. There are 107 species of bugs 



green food; also another lime 5,000 that prey on elm trees, 2C4 that attack 



aphids and 1,285 rose slugs; 37 grass- poplar, 396 that jjiey on the birches, 



hoppers and 2,400 seeds of pigeon grass 151 that work on beech trees, and over 



by a six-weeks old chick; also '65 large 400 that attack oak trees, 



black crickets, half of these must have Fitch once computed the number of 



been females and packed with eggs; 84 plant lice on a single cherry tree to be 



grasshoppers by a seven-weeks-old 12,000,000. Chinch bugs have been 



chick; 700 insects, 300 of them grass- found in a small clump of bunch grass 



hoppers, by a laying hen in July; 48 eight inches in diameter to the number 



grasshoppers by an adult hen in Octo- of 20,000. J. F. Parker of Manhattan, 



ber. Kansas, says he counted 6,000 under 



Tests were made to determine how similar conditions, but had to desist on 



many weed seeds a quail would eat in account of more pressing duties. Wiley 



a day. Some of the results are: once computed that the hop aphis, de- 



, , , , .,.. veloping thirteen generations in a 



Curled dock 4,1 /;> . ' " i i • .■ u i i i »i. 



Pigweed 12,0011 single year, would, if unchecked to the 



Plantain l2,.-)0(i end of the twelfth generation, have 



Smariwced 2,2.-,o ,„j,i,ip]ie,i (o the number of ten sextill- 



ions. C. L. Marlatt calculated that the 

 The Bob White has been known to Hessian flv damage to the wheat crop in 

 cat 135 dilTerent kinds of insect.s, many l!)()() was ifl 00,000,000. The chinch bug 

 of them the most injurious we have: ;,s early as 1864 damaged staple crops 

 The potato beetle— which few other $100,006,000, and Wiley placed the dam- 

 birds eat— cucumber beetle, cutworm, age at $73,000,000. 



army worm, wire worm, chinch bug. Beat says many crops of the Frank- 

 cotton boll worm, and cotton boll ]in gull showed 48 to 90 grasshoppers 

 weevil. each. House martins, swallows and 

 These studies, which constitute the swifts eat rose beetles. May beetles, cu- 

 niost complete and careful investiga- cumber beetles and house flies, practic- 

 tions ever made of the food of any bird, ally all which are caught on the wing, 

 have enabled Mrs. Nice to estimate that Otto Widnian says 32 parent martins 

 a Bob White hen will eat an average of made 3,277 visits to their young with 

 75,000 insects and 6,000,000 weed seeds insects in one day. C. C. Musselman 

 in a year — about 7% pounds insects and continued on page 2:1. 



