AGRICULTURAL USES OF BIRDS. 



941 



AGRICULTURAL USES OF BIRDS. 



T 



HE practical utility of birds in agriculture as agents for the destruction of various 

 insects, is a subject but little understood or appreciated by farmers generally, yet it is 



one that can scarcely be overestimated. It is 

 only within a few years, comparatively, that the 

 value of our native birds in the economy of nature 

 has been ascertained by leading ornithologists, and 

 when the knowledge becomes more widely dissemi 

 nated, and thoroughly understood by the masses, in 

 sect-eating birds will receive that protection from 

 the law that their importance demands, and we 

 shall no more see such wholesale and wanton 

 destruction of these innocent servants of man, by 

 the shotgun of the ignorant and thoughtless 

 sportsman, and less destruction of the valuable 

 products of the soil for lack of their efficient aid 

 in keeping the various tribes of noxious insects 

 in check. 



Classification Of Birds. The classifica 

 tion of birds most familar to the majority of 

 persons who have given any attention to the 

 subject, is probably that of Illigers and Vigors, 

 as modified from and added to that of Linnaeus, 

 the author of this classification, and consists of 

 seven orders, as follows: Raptores, or Birds of 

 Prey; Insessores, or Perching Birds, Scansores, or 

 Climbers; Rasores, or Scratchers; Cursores, or 

 Runners; Grallatores, or &quot;Waders, and the Nata- 

 tores, or Swimmers. 



Professor &quot;W. A. Stearns, of Amherst College, Massachusetts, says of these orders: &quot;These 



Upper Fig. SNOW-BIRD (Junco hyemalis). Lower 

 Fig. SONG-SPARROW (Melospiza melodia). 



WOODPECKERS. 



seven orders have been in general acceptation for the last fifty years, and it is only until 

 recently that the great advance made in ornithology has reduced the whole sub-kingdom 

 of birds to an almost complete definition. As formerly the Raptores or Birds of Prey 



