REPORT OF THE SOCIETY 33 



of the matter proves them to be beneficient through their destruction of worthless 

 fish, and quite harmless under all ordinary circumstances. 



The order Anseres includes what are commonly called the Waterfowls, and 

 we must acknowledge our past and present debt to the Swans, Ducks and Geese 

 as direct providers of food. A few of the ducks eat small fish and shell fish, but 

 the enormous numbers of insects they destroy, especially in the larval stage, place 

 them among our benefactors from this point of view also. 



The deep water waders are called Herodiones, and include as common 

 Canadian birds only the Herons and Bitterns. Bitterns are poor fliers and find 

 safety by standing silently with mottled yellowish and brownish body, neck, 

 head and long sharp bill quite erect. Among the reeds and cattails a sharp eye 

 is required to distinguish this stick-like structure from the similar objects about. 

 The bittern's food is frogs, snakes and fish, but certainly none of value. The 

 Blue and the Green Herons also live on fish, batrachians and insects found 

 in shallow open water. 



The next order, Paludicolie, comprise the birds which walk over the soft 

 marsh borders of lakes, and ponds. Cranes are long as to toes, legs, necks and 

 bills, while the Rails and Galinules, have long toes but very moderate legs and 

 necks. Their food consists chiefly of the insects found about marshes, along 

 with wild rice and other vegetable matter. The Sandhill Cranes quite frequently 

 visit grain fields after harvest, and with the Rails are counted as game birds. 



The Shore Birds, Limicolse, have long been a favorite group with sportsmen, 

 both for the pleasure afforded in hunting them and the very delicate flesh which 

 they furnish. Their destruction has been extremely rapid in most species, 

 because each new generation, coming south from their wilderness hatcheries, 

 often within the arctic circle, learns wisdom only when their dense flocks have 

 been decimated by the breechloader. These plovers, snipe, and woodcock live 

 apparently on soft bodied worms and insect larvae, found in or on the soil of 

 waste lands and the margins of lakes and oceans. They are certainly harmless 

 and may well be considered beneficial. 



We now come to birds which make their homes, obtain their food, and raise 

 their young with slight reference to bodies of water. The Gallinae, or Earth 

 Scrathers, are entirely land birds, unable to swim, and thej" get their food^ — • 

 insects and seeds — entirely from the soil. Our poultry yard is stocked with 

 tamed Galhis hankiva, descendants of the red jungle fowl of India, and with 

 turkeys of the species which ran wild in Texas and Mexico. To the farmer these 

 birds are of great importance since their food consists of seeds, fruit and insects. 

 Fortunately weed seeds and waste grain form the great bulk of their vegetable 

 ration, while some of them, particularly the quail and turkey, feed largely upon 

 5175—3 



