THE PLUME PIRATES 323 



interstices of bark, but always with the absorbed 

 manner of some one who has lost a treasure and is 

 seeking it in every crack. The little Chickadees 

 and Kinglets leave no branch or twig unsearched. 



*'What shall we say, Shan, of the hosts of birds 

 who keep the ground clean? Blackbirds, Crows, 

 Robins, Song-Sparrows, Chewinks, Oven-birds, 

 Brown Thrashers, Ground Warblers, Grouse, 

 Woodcock and Plovers have sharp eyes on every 

 grass-patch, on every piece of soft ground in field, 

 or wood or forest. Woe to the white larvae of May 

 beetles or June bugs, to the wireworms which eat 

 the roots of grasses and grains, to the maggots of 

 crane-flies, root-borers which ruin the hay crop. 

 What of the grasshoppers, locusts, chinch bugs, 

 cutworms and army worms, which, each year, ruin 

 enough food to feed all the armies of the world? 

 Ten thousand times worse would be their devasta- 

 tion, if it were not for the birds to whom Nature 

 has entrusted the care of the ground in her great 

 housekeeping problem. 



''Weeds — the menace of cultivated fields — are 

 not to be kept down with a hoe. Small chance 

 would the farmer or market gardener have for 

 making a living, if it were not for the birds. The 

 Sparrows, the Finches, Siskins, Larks, Grackles, 



