SOME NOTES ON NEBRASKA BIRDS. 55 



no dire result will follow. It is not from the depredations of the 

 masses of insect species that we lose our crops or suffer severe losses 

 in a single direction; but on the contrary, from the few that at times 

 become abnormally numerous. This being true, the birds naturally 

 turn their attention to these latter for the bulk of their food supply. 

 We may infer from this statement then that even a bird is not fool 

 enough to ignore a plentiful food supply for that which is difficult to 

 obtain. 



While a very large per cent of our birds retire toward the south as 

 winter approaches, a few of the species remain with us over winter. 

 Of course these that remain must be fed, and if left to themselves they 

 will find that food. Most of them now change to a vegetable diet of 

 which they find a plentiful store in the numerous weeds and other, to 

 man, useless seeds that lie strewn about the country everywhere. These 

 seeds, which are quite rich in oils, give the necessary fuel supply and 

 energy that warm the small snow-buntings and sustain their powers as 

 they hurl themselves into the very teeth of the arctic blasts when the 

 thermometer registers many degrees below zero. Even here the birds 

 befriend the tiller of the soil by searching out and destroying the seeds 

 of many a noxious weed that would quickly grow up and occupy the 

 ground to the disadvantage or destruction of that which is being cul- 

 tivated. 



There are instances where a bird may be harmful during one part 

 of the year and exceedingly beneficial during the remainder. In such 

 cases, if we apply business principles, we will carefully estimate both 

 sides of the account before a summary settlement is made by destroy- 

 ing the bird. He is a poor business man who pays ten dollars for that 

 which he knows must later be sold for fifteen cents, or even less. Yet 

 I have known of instances where a robin that had saved ten to fifteen 

 bushels of apples that were worth a dollar per bushel, by clearing the 

 tree from canker worms in spring, was shot when he simply pecked 

 one of the apples that he had saved for the grateful or ungrateful fruit- 

 grower. Some persons would gladly sell cherries to their neighbors at 

 the rate of ten cents per quart, but would refuse to let a bird have 

 them at ten cents apiece after they had been paid for in advance. 

 The ordinary Hed-headed Woodpecker, which is almost universally 

 credited with being an insect destroyer, has been found by actual ex- 

 amination to take more corn and other vegetable food than is taken by 

 any of the thrushes — birds which most of us brand as rascals. 



