the I'alue of Birds to Man. 113 



assistance, for the number of weed seeds eaten by birds on 

 cultivated land must be beyond an}^ assignable quantity. 



One of the greatest weed destroyers is the Quail. It is 

 doubtful, indeed, if the Quail is not more useful to man than 

 any other bird. It is very nearly wholly beneficial. During 

 spring and summer it feeds on many of the most destructive 

 of insects, and in autumn and winter it eats an enormous 

 amount of seeds of many harmful weeds. 



The report of the United States Biological Survey says : — 



"It is reasonable to suppose that in the States of Virginia 

 and North Carolina from September 1 to April 30 there 

 were four Quail to each square mile of land. The crop of 

 each bird holds half an ounce of seed and is filled twice a 

 day. Since, at each of these two daily meals harmful weed 

 seeds constitute at least half the contents of the crop, a half 

 ounce daily is consumed by each bird. On this basis, the 

 total consumption of harmful weed seeds by Quail from 

 September to April in Virginia and North Carolina amounts 

 to 1341 tons. As destructive insects form about one-third 

 of the bird's food from June to August, Quail consume 

 341 tons of these pests in these States within those two 

 months." 



But perhaps the most valuable service that Quail render 

 the people of the United States is the greedy way in which 

 — and they stand almost alone among birds in this par- 

 ticular taste — they eat the evil-smelling potato-bug or, as 

 we call it, the Colorado beetle. 



In addition to this inestimable service it is partially due to 

 this bird that that pernicious thing, the cotton boll w^eevil, 

 has not swept over the entire cotton belt of America, 

 bringing ruin to thousands of huuuin beings on both sides 

 of the Atlantic. 



As I am speaking of the Quail, what I am about to say 

 may not seem, for the moment, pertinent — but it is. 



According to statistics published in April by the Govern- 

 ment Biological Survey at ^Vashington, it is shown that the 

 cost of living last year in the United States was raised to 

 cover a loss of one billiuii dollars in iigricullural produce, 



