170 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
seed per day, and on that basis, in a state the size of Iowa, 
the species would consume about 800 tons of seeds annually. 
In passing, it should be pointed out, however, that the 
weed-destroying power of graminivorous birds may be ex- 
aggerated if the question is not investigated with great 
thoroughness, for while the powerful gizzards of some birds 
may grind up the hardest-coated seeds, in other cases seeds 
may be capable of germination after passing through the 
digestive tract, as Collinge has shown in a number of cases 
in English birds. In such cases the birds would act as dis- 
seminators of weed seeds. Then again, in the case of in- 
sectivorous birds, besides destroying noxious insects, they 
will destroy various kinds of insects which are useful by 
reason of their parasitic habits upon noxious insects. These 
facts indicate that the question of the economic status of a 
bird is not always an easy matter to determine, and de- 
mands thorough investigation in each case. 
Furthermore, in certain instances useful birds eat grain 
or fruit. The horned larks occasionally eat grain, vegetable 
food constituting about 80 per cent of their total food. Six- 
sevenths of this total amount of vegetable food consists of 
the seeds of such weeds as foxtail, amaranth, ragweed, and 
bindweed. It surely is not too much to ask that, in view 
of the good they effect, a little injury shall be overlooked, 
especially as they make no charges for the good work they 
accomplish. It has sometimes seemed to me that in the 
case of those useful birds which sometimes take to fruit- 
eating, it is far cheaper to protect the fruit from the birds 
than from the insects. As insecticides birds are the cheapest 
and most generally efficient that can be found. 
The much-maligned crows are to no small extent friends 
of the farmer. In my investigations in England I found 
that at certain periods of the year they consumed large 
quantities of cutworms and root-feeding insect larve. In 
the United States Beal has found that the crow deserves 
protection and not wholesale destruction. The crow is an 
