MASON AND LEFROY. 9 



The most important groups of insects we have included 

 under this heading are the Ants (Formicidce) and th e 

 Dung beetles (Scarabceidce}. , These two groups are 

 exceedingly numerous both in species and individuals 

 and form an important item in the food of most of 

 the insect eating birds. 



The economic importance of orders and families, etc., of 

 insects mentioned in this paper as taken by birds is separately 

 discussed or stated on pp. 



VEGKTARIAN AND GRAIN-EATING BIRDS. 



As a general rule, it is among purely seed and fruit-eating birds 

 that injurious species will occur. A purely fruit-eating bird can 

 never be regarded as beneficial, except from a forestry point of view. 

 Ssed-eating birds, that eat weed seeds only, are as a rule said to be 

 beneficial. On the whole perhaps they are, though there are 

 arguments against this. It is a well-known fact that birds act as a 

 natural means for seed distribution, that the germinating power of 

 seeds is often not injured in the least by passing through the bird, 

 and that many seeds (e.g., Loranthus spp.) are specially adapted 

 for this method of distribution ; and again many species of birds 

 have the power of ejecting from the mouth both distasteful food 

 and also hard seeds when the pulp surrounding them has been 

 digested. Such birds, therefore, though destroying many seeds, 

 distribute others further afield than would otherwise have been the 

 case and are injurious rather than beneficial, except from a forestry 

 point of view. In India, I consider a bird eating weed seed as of 

 no value whatever. They may keep weeds down to a certain 

 extent, but this is of minor importance in a country where labour is 

 cheap and where farming is not practised on such intensive lines 

 as elsewhere. Even in intensive cultivation we cannot rely on 

 weeds being kept down by birds and the expense of cultivation to 

 eliminate weeds is, I believe, not reduced in the slightest by the 

 action of birds. We cannot expect the complete elimination of 

 any one of the commoner weeds by the agency of bird? alone. If 



