SUPPRESSION" OF PESTS BY BIRDS Mr-ATEE. 415 



sects were devoured. The farmers of Kansas are under great obli- 

 gations to the little yellowheads, or, as some call them, copperheads, 

 for their service last summer." 



The above testimony proves that birds render valuable assistance 

 even in the case of insect infestation so serious that almost all of 

 the crops over enormous areas are destroyed. The evidence leaves 

 no doubt that in many instances birds exterminated the locusts in 

 restricted localities, and that it was due to their work alone that 

 crops were secured in these areas. 



The most important species concerned were the various blackbirds, 

 especially the yellow-headed, and the prairie-chicken, bobwhite, and 

 killdeer plover. 



An insect almost as important in certain parts of the West as the 

 Rocky Mountain locust is known to have been effectually checked 

 on one occasion by California gulls (Laviis calif ornicus). This is 

 the short-winged grasshopper (Anabrus simplex), commonly known 

 as the black or Mormon cricket. Hon. George Q. Cannon spoke of 

 this insect and its bird enemies in an address before the Third Na- 

 tional Irrigation Congress, in Denver, 1894. He said : 5 



After our grain had been sown and our fields looked promising, black crickets 

 came * * * by the millions and devoured our crops. I have seen fields of 

 wheat as promising as they could be in the morning and by evening they would 

 be as bare as a man's hand — devoured by these crickets. * * * To us who 

 lived in Utah about that time it seemed there was a visitation of Providence 

 to save us. Sea gulls came by hundreds and by thousands, and before the crops 

 were entirely destroyed these gulls devoured the insects, so that our fields 

 were entirely freed from them. 



This testimony is corroborated by that of a correspondent of the 

 first entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 Townend Glover, who records 6 that "Mr. James McKnight, who 

 lives in Salt Lake City, states that when the Mormons first emi- 

 grated to Utah this cricket appeared in immense swarms, destroying 

 their whole crops of wheat, etc., and that the second year they also 

 appeared, but providentially, or miraculously, as it was deemed by 

 the Mormons, vast flocks of white gulls suddenly appeared and de- 

 stroyed the crickets to such an extent as to almost eradicate them 

 for the time being, thus saving the remainder of the crop, upon which 

 alone the half-starved Mormons had to rely for food for the next 

 season. Since that time these birds are held almost sacred in Utah," 

 It may be added that a monument commemorating the valuable aid 

 of the gulls has been erected in Salt Lake City. 



An insect closely related to the Mormon cricket is the Coulee 

 cricket (Perandbrws scdbricollis) of the Northwestern United States. 



irrigation Age, Vol. VII. Xo. 4, pp. 188-189, Oct., 1894. 

 8 Rep. Comm. Agr., p. 79, 1871. 



