MISCELLANEOUS 237 



meadow and field crops. These birds feed upon the army 

 worms and cutworms that do so much injury to the young 

 shoots ; they also destroy the chinch bug and the grass- 

 hopper, both of which feed upon cultivated plants. 



A count of all the different kinds of animals shows that 

 insects make up nine tenths of the animals. Hence it is 

 easy to see that if something did not check their increase 

 they would soon 

 almost take the earth. 

 Our forests and or- 

 chards furnish homes 

 and breeding places 

 for most of these 

 insects. Suppose the 

 injurious insects were 

 allowed to multiply 

 unchecked in these 

 forests, their numbers 

 would so increase that 

 they would invade our 



fields and create as 



FIG. 207. A WARBLER 

 much terror among 



the farmers as they did in Pharaoh's Egypt. The birds 

 are the only direct friends man has to destroy these harm- 

 ful insects. What benefactors, then, these little feathered 

 neighbors are ! 



It has been estimated that a bird will devour thirty 

 insects daily. Even in a widely extended forest region 

 a very few birds to the acre, if they kept up this rate, 

 would daily destroy many bushels of insects that would 

 play havoc with neighboring orchards and fields. 



