CATBIRD (Dumetella carolinensis) 



Length, al)Out o inches. The slaty gray 

 plumage and black cap and tail arc distinctive. 



Range ; Jireeds throughout tiie United States 

 west to New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, and Wash- 

 ington, and in southern Canada; winters from 

 the Gulf States to Panama. ■ 



Habits and economic status: In many locali- 

 ties the catbird is one of the commonest birds. 

 Tangled growths are its favorite nesting places 

 and retreats, but berry patches and ornamental 

 shrubbery are not disdained. Hence the bird 

 is a familiar dooryard visitor. The bird has a 

 fme song, unfortunately marred by occasional 

 cat calls. With habits similar to those of the 

 mocking bird and a song almost as varied, the 

 catbird has never secured a similar place in 

 popular favor. Half of its food consists of 

 fruit, and the cultivated crops most often in- 

 jured are cherries, strawberries, raspberries, 

 and blackberries. Beetles, ants, crickets, and 

 grasshoppers are the most important element 

 of its animal food. The bird is known to 

 attack a few pests, as cutworms, leaf beetles, 

 clover-root curculio, and the periodical cicada; 

 but the good it does in this way probably does 

 not pay for the fruit it steals. The extent to 

 which it should be protected may perhaps be 

 left to the individual cultivator — that is, it 

 should be made lawful to destroy catbirds that 

 are doing manifest damage to crops. 



LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE (Lanius 

 ludovicianus) 



Length, about 9 inches. A gray, black, and 

 white bird, distinguished from the somewhat 

 similarly colored mocking bird by the black 

 stripe on side of head. 



Range : Breeds throughout the United States, 

 Mexico, and southern Canada ; winters in the 

 southern half of the United States and in 

 Mexico. 



Habits and economic status : The loggerhead 

 shrike, or southern butcher bird, is common 

 throughout its range and is sometimes called 

 "French mocking bird" from a superficial re- 

 semblance and not from its notes, which are 

 harsh and unmusical. The shrike is naturally 

 an insectivorous bird which has extended its 

 bill of fare to include small mammals, birds, 

 and reptiles. Its hooked beak is well adapted 

 to tearing its prey, while to make amends for 

 the lack of talons it has hit upon the plan of 

 forcing its victim, if too large to swallow, into 

 the fork of a bush or tree, where it can tear 

 it asunder. Insects, especially grasshoppers, 

 constitute the larger part of its food, though 

 beetles, moths, caterpillars, ants, wasps, and a 

 few spiders also are taken. While the butcher 

 bird occasionally catches small birds, its prin- 

 cipal vertebrate food is small mammals, as 

 field mice, shrews, and moles, and when possi- 

 ble it obtains lizards. It habitually impales its 

 surplus prey on a thorn, sharp twig, or barb 

 of a wire fence. 



MYRTLE WARBLER (Dendroica 

 coronata) 



Length, sYz inches. The similarly colored 

 Audubon's warbler has a yellow throat instead 

 of a white one. (See page 85.) 



Range: Breeds throughout most of the for- 

 ested area of Canada and south to Minnesota, 

 Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts ; win- 

 ters in the southern two-thirds of the United 

 States and south to Panama. 



Habits and economic status: This member 

 of our beautiful wood-warbler family — a fam- 

 ily peculiar to America — has the characteristic 

 voice, coloration, and habits of its kind. Trim 

 of form and graceful of motion, when seeking 

 food it combines the methods of the wrens, 

 creepers, and flycatchers. It breeds only in 

 the northern parts of the eastern United States, 

 but in migration it occurs in every patch of 

 woodland and is so numerous that it is fa- 

 miliar to every observer. Its place is taken in 

 the West by Audubon's warbler. More than 

 three-fourths of the food of the myrtle warbler 

 consists of insects, practically all of them 

 harmful. It is made up of small beetles, in- 

 cluding some weevils, with many ants and 

 wasps. This bird is so small and nimble that 

 it successfully attacks insects too minute to be 

 prey for larger birds. Scales and plant lice 

 form a very considerable part of its diet. Flies 

 are the largest item of food ; in fact, only a 

 few flycatchers and swallows eat as many flies 

 as this bird. The vegetable food (22 per cent) 

 is made up of fruit and the seeds of poison 

 oak or ivy; also the seeds of pine and of the 

 bayberry. 



BARN SWALLOW (Hirundo 

 erythrogastra) 



Length, about 7 inches. Distinguished among 

 our swallows by deeply forked tail. 



Range : Breeds throughout the United States 

 (except the South Atlantic and Gulf States) 

 and most of Canada ; winters in South Amer- 

 ica. 



Habits and economic status : This is one of 

 the most familiar birds of the farm and one 

 of the greatest insect destroyers. From day- 

 light to dark on tireless wings it seeks its prey, 

 and the insects destroyed are countless. Its 

 favorite nesting site is a barn rafter, upon 

 which it sticks its mud basket. Most modern 

 barns are so tightly constructed that swallows 

 cannot gain entrance, and in New England and 

 some other parts of the country barn swallows 

 are much less numerous than formerly. Farm- 

 ers can easily provide for the entrance and exit 

 of the birds and so add materially to their 

 numbers. It may be well to add that the para- 

 sites that sometimes infest the nests of swal- 

 lows are not the ones the careful housewife 

 dreads, and no fear need be felt of the infesta- 

 tion spreading to the houses. Insects taken on 

 the wing constitute the almost exclusive diet 

 of the barn swallow. More than one-third of 

 the whole consists of flies. Beetles stand next 

 in order and consist of many of the small dung 

 beetles of the May-beetle family that swarm 

 over the pastures in the late afternoon. 



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