47 



found that more than 900 juniper berries passed through the 

 digestive tract of a Bohemian waxwing in six hours. Mr. Frank 

 J. Phillips gives a list of 26 birds that eat juniper berries. 1 

 Probably others also eat them and assist in distributing the 

 seeds. The seeds and pits of the larger fruits eaten by birds 

 are mostly regurgitated and they are scattered far and wide. 

 Birds alone would soon replant all the cleared lands were it 

 not for the mowing machine, the reaper and the tools of culti- 

 vation. The tangles of trees, shrubs and vines that so often 

 spring up along the fences and roadsides are due largely to 

 planting by birds. 



BIRDS AS SCAVENGERS. 



Birds perform a valuable service as scavengers. The utility 

 of vultures, ravens and crows, in quickly devouring garbage 

 and the decaying carcasses of animals, is well known, and this 

 service is particularly valuable in hot countries. Gulls and 

 some other sea birds are particularly useful in cleaning up the 

 garbage of large cities when it is dumped into the sea. Every- 

 thing edible that floats is destroyed by the gathering thousands 

 of these birds, and is thus prevented from drifting back upon 

 the beaches. Masses of dead and decaying fish or shellfish 

 thrown upon the shore by the waves are quickly disposed of by 

 gulls. Complaints have been made that they have even stolen 

 dead fish used to manure the fields. Only recently on Long 

 Island it is said that a farmer bought and paid for tons of star- 

 fish that he intended to use as fertilizer, but when he came 

 with his teams to haul them away the heap had disappeared. 

 Eyewitnesses said that the gulls had stolen them all. This story 

 illustrates how quickly the assembling gulls remove a mal- 

 odorous nuisance, and how vigilant they are in this service. 



UTILITY OF BIRDS OF PREY. 



Birds of prey perform a part in the economy of nature by 

 limiting the increase of many of the larger insects, besides some 

 of the smaller birds and mammals, which if unchecked might 

 cause great disturbances in the balance of Nature. These rap- 

 torial species are checks upon the increase of other natural 



1 The Dissemination of Junipers by Birds, reprint from Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VIII, No. 1, 

 pp. 5, 15, 16. 



