ECONOMIC VALIK oF lUKDS. 7 



liirds (lii::est their food so rapidly, tliat it is dilHciilt to 

 estiinate from tlie contcMits of a Itird's stomach at a ^ivuii 

 time lioNv nuK-h it eats (hiriiij^ tlie day. The stomach of a 

 Yello\v-l>illed Cuckoo, shot at six oVdock in tlie moruiiii^, 

 contained the partially digested remains of forty-three 

 tent caterpillars, Ijut how many it would have eaten he- 

 fore night no one can say. 



Mr. E. II. Forbush, Ornithologist of the Board of 

 Agriculture of Massachusetts, states that the stomachs 

 of four Chickadees contained one thousand and twenty- 

 eight eggs of the cankerworm. The stomachs of four 

 other birds of the same species contained about six 

 hundred colors and one hundred and five female moths 

 of the cankerworm. The average number of eggs 

 found in twenty of these moths was one hundred and 

 eiglity-five ; and as it is estimated that a Chickadee may 

 eat thirty female cankerworm moths per day during 

 the twenty -five days which these moths crawl up trees, 

 it follows that in this period each Chickadee would de- 

 stroy one hundred and thirty-eight thousand seven hun- 

 dred and fifty eggs of this noxious insect. 



Professor Forbes, Director of the Illinois State Lab- 

 oratory of Natural History, found one hundred and 

 seventy-five larvae of Bihio — a fly which in the larval 

 stage feeds on the roots of grass — in the stomach of a 

 single Iwobin, and the intestine contained probably as 

 many more. 



^lany additional cases could be cited, showing the 

 intimate relati(jn of l)irds to insect-life, and emi)liasizing 

 the necessity of protecting and encouraging these little- 

 appreciated allies of the agriculturist. 



The service rendered man by hirds in killing the 

 small rodents so destructive to crops is performed hy 

 Hawks and Owls — birds the uninformed farmer con- 

 siders his enemies. The truth is that, with two excep- 



