BIRDS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE | 
experienced cutworm-hunter, and these birds have been 
observed in large flocks destroying cutworms in badly in- 
fected fields, which they carefully work over. When fields 
are ploughed they follow the plough and consume immense 
quantities of the destructive white grubs, one of our worst 
agricultural pests. Where, through their numbers, crows 
become destructive, it is necessary to take stepos to reduce 
them. 
The woodpeckers are specially fitted by nature to destroy 
the wood-boring insects that so speedily kill our forest, 
shade, and orchard trees. The flicker feeds largely on ants; 
a single stomach has been found to contain over 5,000 ants. 
In another instance 28 white grubs were found in the 
stomach of one of these birds, which feed largely on the 
ground. The downy woodpecker feeds largely on the borers 
of trees, and is one of our most useful insectivorous birds. 
An examination of 723 stomachs showed that 76 per cent 
of the diet was animal food, consisting chiefly of insects. 
The yellow-bellied sapsucker is practically the only member 
of the woodpecker family that is injurious. Its fondness for 
the inner bark of trees leads it to girdle the trees with holes, 
the effect of which is either to kill the trees outright or 
seriously disfigure the timber. 
Gulls are constantly associated in the minds of most peo- 
ple with the sea or our large inland lakes, and their agri- 
cultural value is therefore largely obscured. Nevertheless 
there exist very extensive breeding-places of certain species 
inland, and such a species as Franklin’s gull is a true inland 
species. Sometimes hundreds of ring-billed, herring, and 
Franklin’s gulls may be seen following the plough on the 
prairie and feeding on the white grubs, wireworms, and 
other insects and their larve that are turned up. It has 
been found that about four-fifths of the food of the Frank- 
lin’s gull consists of grasshoppers. 
From the foregoing review it is obvious that all the chief 
groups of birds contain representatives, or entirely consist 
