TPR Re Re A ANN Ee ea ey, eee 
Me tg? ; . reaeee . :> >;** Ws 
[sey 
bo 
On 
BIRDS HELP THE FARMER. 
BIRDS HELP THE FARMER. 
[Selected.] 
Dr. C. Hart Merriam, chief of the division of ornithology of the 
agricultural department, has been for several years engaged in ex- 
amining and analyzing the contents ofthe stomachs of hawks, owls, 
crows, blackbirds and other birds of North America which are sup- 
posed to be strikingly beneficial or injurious to the crops of farm- 
ers. The stomachs of over 7,000 birds taken at different seasons of 
the year have been already analyzed and the contents determined, 
while some 12,000 are still unexamined. The results in some cases 
have been remarkable, showing in several notable instances that the 
popular ideas regarding the injurious effects of certain birds were 
wholly mistaken ones, and that they have been the victims of an un- 
just persecution. This has been found to be especially the case with 
hawks and owls, for the slaughter of which many states give boun- 
ties. Pennsylvania in two years gave over $100,000 in hawk and owl 
bounties. Examinations of the stomachs of these birds prove that 
95 per cent. of their food was field mice, grasshoppers, crickets, etc., 
which were infinitely more injurious to farm crops than they. It 
was found that only five kinds of hawks and owls ever touched 
poultry and, then, only toa very limitedextent. A bulletin now go- 
ing to the press on the crow also shows that bird not so black as he 
has been painted by farmers. The charges against the crow were 
that he destroyed the eggs of poultry and wild birds. Examina- 
tions of their stomachs show that they eat noxious insects and ani- 
mals, and that, although 25 per cent. of their food is corn, it is most- 
ly waste corn picked up in the fall and winter. 
With regard to eggs, it was found that the shells were eaten to a 
very limited extent for the lime. They eat ants, beetles, caterpillars, 
bugs, flies, etc., which do much damage. Cuckoos and other black- 
birds, kingbirds, meadow larks, cedar birds, thrushes, catbirds, 
sparrows, etc., are also being reviewed in the bulletins. In many 
cases popular ideas are found to be untrue. In the case of the king- 
bird, killed by the farmer under the impression that it eats bees, it 
was found that he ate only drones and robber flies which them- 
selves feed on bees and which destroy more bees in a day than the 
kingbird doesina year. The kingbird, therefore, is to be encour- 
aged rather than slaughtered. The cuckoos are also found to be 
very useful birds in this country. Because the European cuckoo 
robbed nests and laid thereinits own eggs, popular fancy attributed 
the same vicious habit to our own cuckoo. He is, however, not de- 
praved like his European namesake, but a very decent fellow who 
does much good in the destructiou of insects. The result of this 
work, Dr. Merriam says, will inure to the protection of beneficial 
birds and the destruction of the injurious ones. 
Dr. Merriam is also preparing a map showing the life zones of the 
United States for birds, reptiles and plants, a work on which he has 
been engaged for years. 
