SHALL WE PAY OUR DEBT? 351 



and shitepokes, keeping down the excess frog pop- 

 ulation, water-puppies, lizzards, tiny soft turtles, 

 grubs, and worms. 



Over the sattds race the flashing legs of rails, 

 plovers, and sandpipers, picking up snails, larvae, 

 spiders, bugs of all sorts, and eating the seeds of 

 weeds and wild rice from the green majolica plates 

 grown by the pond lilies. 



Over the earth of the fields and open country go 

 flocks of quail, cleaning up the fallen weed seeds 

 in the fence corners, putting wasted grain to excel- 

 lent use, snapping up grasshoppers and other in- 

 sects here and there, helped in all this work by 

 woodcocks, snipe, and prairie chickens, although 

 hunters are rapidly exterminating the last. In 

 the clover fields and meadows the larks are busy 

 searching out wireworms and cutworms, and clean- 

 ing the breast of earth of every visible bug and 

 worm with the assistance of bobolinks and oven 

 birds. In gardens and dooryards, the robin is the 

 greatest hunter of earthworms, taking uncounted 

 thousands, also cutworms and other injurious in- 

 sects comprising over one third of his food. Many 

 people object to the robins and cedar birds because 

 they are especially fond of cherries, but the robins 

 are such invaluable insect exterminators that the 

 thing to do is to plant a few Russian mulberries 

 somewhere on your premises, and you will never 

 again be troubled to any noticeable extent by 

 these birds among your cherries. 



