but in the month of August, which is the month when they attain their maximum 

 abundance and frequently become a pest, nearly all birds, no matter what their 

 usual food habits may be, come to the ground and eat grasshoppers. Such birds 

 as the Baltimore oriole, and the cuckoo, which normally find their food upon the 

 trees, change their habits in August and leave the trees to forage upon the ground. 

 A few years ago, when the western part of the country was devastated by the 

 Rocky Mountain locust, it was found that nearly every species of bird, even 

 the larger hawks, and ducks and geese, fed upon them to a considerable extent." 



One of the notable achievements of the economic ornithologist has been to 

 emphasize the value of seed-eating birds, the sparrows, doves, blackbirds and 

 others. It is a common error to believe that birds are of service to man only as 

 insect-eaters, and that the non-insectivorous species, if not harmful, are, at lesat, 

 of no particular use. But the fact is that these same insignificant looking spar- 

 rows are the farmers' best allies in his never-ending warfare against weeds. 



During the winter weed seeds form practically the entire fare of a number of 

 species of sparrows, the seeds of amaranth, crab grass, ragweed, and pigeon 

 grass being the kinds devoured most frequently. 



Dr. S. D. Judd, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, who has made a 

 special study of the food habits of seed-eating birds, states that 1,000 pigweed 

 seeds were found in the stomach of a snowbunting killed at Shrewsbury, Mass., 

 in February, and that 700 seeds of pigeon grass were taken from a single tree 

 sparrow ; and the investigations of Professor Beal in the State of Iowa show that 

 this species during the period of its presence, from October until April, destroyed 

 each year about 875 tons of weed seeds. 



Further practical evidence of the seed-eating ability of birds is furnished 

 by Dr. Judd, who writes : "On a farm in Maryland, just outside the District of 

 Columbia, tree S])arrows, fox sparrows, white throats, song sparrows and 

 juncoes fairly swarmed during December in the briers of the ditches between the 

 cornfields. They came into the open fields to feed upon weed seed, and worked 

 hardest where the smartweed formed a tangle on low ground. Later in the 

 season the place was carefully examined. In one cornfield near a ditch the 

 smartweed formed a thicket over 3 feet high, and the ground beneath was 

 literally black with seeds. Examination showed that these seeds had been 

 cracked open and the seed removed. In a rectangular space 18 square inches were 

 found 1,130 hayseeds, and only two whole seeds. Even as late as May 13, the 

 birds were still feeding on the seeds of these and other weeds in the fields ; in 

 fact, out of a collection of 16 sparrows 12. mainly song, chipping and field 

 sparrows, had been eating old weed seed. A search was made for seeds of 

 various weeds, but so thoroughly had the work been done that only half a dozen 

 seeds could be found. The birds had taken practically all the seed that was not 

 covered ; in fact, the song sparrow and several others scratch up much buried 

 seed." 



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