458 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



around, but of the summer residents as well, the flicker and red-head. The 

 rest of their food consists largely of small fruits and berries. Woodpeckers 

 seem to be the only birds able to destroy certain insect enemies of the for- 

 ests, and are therefore deservin-g of every possible protection. 



During our stay in the orchard, if we listen and look sharp, we may see 

 a pair of white-breasted nuthatches or a flock of black-capped chickadees 

 climbing over the bark of the trees, in the manner of the woodpeckers, ex- 

 cept that they climb downward as well as upward, and do not use their tail 

 as a support. Our scientists tell us that they take the smaller eggs and 

 larvae overlooked by the woodpeckers. The trees have another faithful 

 friend in the little brown creeper, to me one of the dearest of birds. He 

 has such queer little ways all his own, one being that he creeps up to the very 

 top of the tree and then what does he do but fly or rather drop to the very 

 base of another or perhaps the same tree, and this he repeats seemingly all 

 daylong in his endless search for food. 



But we have other workers here these days and they are just as busy as 

 the woodpeckers, chicadees, nuthatches and little brown creeper; they do 

 not seem to mind the cold either. Food is what they are looking too, but 

 it is so different from that of the woodpeckers. It consists almost entirely 

 of weed-seeds, those noxious weeds we try so hard to destroy during the 

 summer. One of our stanchest helpers in this work is our own dear bob- 

 white, who has been known to have as many as four hundred pig-weed 

 seeds in his crop at one time. Another one had five hundred seeds of rag- 

 weed, and one bobwhite had 640 seeds of pigeoQ-grass. In the summer 

 he is very fond of potato bugs, chinch bugs, cutworms and grasshoppers. 

 I am sure if the farmer knew the real value of the quail, they would not 

 only protect those on their own farms, but would see to it that the law 

 would protect them everywhere and all the year around, and the prairie 

 chickens, too, as they also are great seed-eaters. We often hear it said "We 

 may as well shoot the quail, they will be smoothered by the snow in winter 

 anyway." This it seems to me is all the more a reason why they should be 

 so rigidly protected. In years past when there were fewer people, we had 

 great flocks of quail and prairie chickens, and there was just as much snow 

 those days as there is now. 



Besides the quail and prairie chickens, we have other seed-eaters. They 

 are the tree sparrows and juncos, a large flock of which live in our grove 

 and orchard every winter. Winter visitants we call them, because they 

 come from farther north to spend their winters with us. Professor Beal of 

 the Biologicial survey examined the stomachs of many tree sparrows and 

 found them entirely filled with weed-seed, and concluded that each bird con- 

 sumed at least a quarter of an ounce daily. Upon this basis, after making 

 a fair allowance of the number of birds to the square mile, he calculated 

 that in the State of Iowa alone, the tree sparrows annually destroy about 

 one million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, or about eight hun- 

 dred and seventy-five tons of weed-seed during their winter sojourn. For 

 several weeks during the spring and fall migration the tree sparrow and 

 juncos are assisted in their destructi )n of weed-seeds by their near relatives, 

 the white throated and white crowned sparrows, savanna sparrows, song spar- 

 rows and fox colored sparrows that are on their way either to or from their 



