56 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



and 5 per cent of vegetable food. What more than 

 that can any forester ask of a bird? 



The Baltimore Oriole stands very high as a 

 destroyer of insects; and incidentally its nest is 

 the most wonderful example of bird architecture to 

 be found in North America. In May, insects make 

 up 90 per cent of the food of this bird. For the 

 entire year, insects constitute 83.4 per cent, and 

 vegetable food only 16.6 per cent of its bill of fare. 



The Meadow-Lark is one of the most valuable 

 of the birds that persistently frequent farming 

 regions. During the insect season, 90 per cent of 

 its food consists of insects, and during the year as 

 a whole, insects make up 73 per cent. 



Even the Crow Blackbird, with a reputation not 

 of the best, finds 27 per cent of its food in the ranks 

 of our insect enemies, and it has been fully ac- 

 quitted of the ancient charge of nest-robbing. 



Perhaps the most interesting single exhibit in 

 all the long list of good services of insectivorous 

 birds is that which brings together the known 

 enemies and destroyers of the devastating cotton- 

 boll weevil. This is really a southern exhibit of 

 northern birds, and directly concerns half a dozen 

 states of the Gulf coast of the South, states which 

 we long have been earnestly exhorting to consider 

 the economic value of birds, and stop within their 

 borders the slaughter of the crop-protecting species. 



The list of birds that wage war on the cotton-boll 

 weevil contains fifty-two species, some of which 



