12 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 1747, 
strictly vegetarian doves and pigeons. Although birds of all families 
prey upon grasshoppers, the following may be selected as the most 
important destroyers of grasshoppers for their respective groups: 
Franklin’s gull, bobwhite, prairie chicken, red-tailed, red-shouldered, 
broad-winged, and sparrow hawks, the screech and burrowing owls, 
yellow-billed cuckoo, road-runner, nighthawk, red-headed wood- 
pecker, kingbird, horned lark, crow, magpie, red-winged and crow 
blackbirds, meadowlark, lark bunting, grasshopper and lark spar- 
rows, butcher bird, wren, and robin. 
Fie. 16.—A robber fiy, Promachus vertebratus, which preys upon young grasshoppers : 
Adult. About three times natural size. (Original.) 
Domestic fowls are also very fond of grasshoppers and feed greed- 
ily upon them whenever possible. Turkeys are sometimes killed by 
eating too freely of grasshoppers, the strong, rough hind legs of 
which cause severe lacerations or even puncturing of the crops of 
the birds. 
HISTORICAL. 
There exists ample evidence showing that grasshoppers, or locusts, 
as they are most often called in the Old World, have been reckoned 
among the principal insect enemies of agriculture since man began 
to till the soil. The writings of the Egyptians, Greeks, and ancient 
Hebrews all contain references to these insects as hateful pests of 
