VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN BUCKLAND. 455 



But perhaps the most valuable service that quail render the people 

 of the United States is the greedy way in which — and they stand 

 almost alone among birds in this particular taste — they eat the evil- 

 smelling potato bug, or, as we call it, the Colorado beetle. 



In addition to this inestimable service it is partially due to this 

 bird that the cotton boll weevil has not swept over the entire cotton 

 belt of America, bringing ruin to thousands of human beings on 

 both sides of the Atlantic. 



THE BIRD AS A SCAVENGER. 



The fishing population of these islands has declared war on the 

 gulls, and is demanding the withdrawal of certain species from the 

 list of protected birds, on account of the damage they are alleged to 

 do to the fishing industry. People who believe fishermen's tales are 

 apt to be duped and led into repeated errors. The gull is a surface 

 feeder. It may occasionally levy toll on useful fish, but to say that 

 it does any appreciable injury to the fishing business is absurd. 



On the other hand, the presence of the gull is essential to man's 

 health. While the bird fulfills many useful minor offices — such as 

 destroying larvae in land along the seaboard and in eating enemies of 

 fish that are exposed during low tide — its chief function in the 

 economy of nature is that of scavenger of the harbors and of the 

 littoral, just as vultures are the scavengers of the mainland. The 

 wholesale destruction of gulls for their plumage in Yucatan was 

 followed by a great increase of human mortality among the inhabi- 

 tants of the coast, which mortality was irrefutably clue to the loss 

 of the birds that had kept the harbors and bays free from the decay- 

 ing matter which the sea is constantly casting ashore. 



I wonder if these men who wish the gull destroyed ever give a 

 thought to what would happen to their own smelling villages if this 

 bird was not present to eat the refuse they throw about ? Or, again, 

 if they ever reflect on that feeling of relief they experience wlien in 

 thick weather they hear, through the fog, the clamor of these feath- 

 ered bell buoys, warning them that they are nearing rock or bar? 



THE BIRD AS A GUANO PRODUCER. 



Xow that I am on the subject of pelagic birds, I will speak of 

 their value as guano producers. 



Undoubtedly the present enormous trade in fertilizers owes its 

 origin to the bird, for the fertilizing properties of the i)hosphoric 

 acid and nitrogen contained in fish was not recognized until guano — 

 which is the excrement of sea birds mixed with fish — became a 

 stimulus to intensive agriculture. 



The value of guano as a fertilizer was known to the people of Peru 

 in the time of the Incas, though the nineteenth century had dawned 



