INSECTS AND BIRDS. 



SECTION LI. BIRDS OF THE FIELD AND GARDEN. 



Birds Protect the Grass Crop. The services of 

 birds in the field are quite as essential as in the forest. 

 The task of protecting the grass in the field from the 

 attacks of insects is quite as impossible for the farmer 

 as that of protecting the forest trees. Birds must al- 



A TYPICAL SEED EATER WHITE-THROATED SPARROW. 



ways be relied upon as protectors of the grass crop 

 from locusts, grasshoppers, leafhoppers, cutworms, 

 grubs and most of the injurious insects of the fields. 

 Professor Herbert Osborn has shown that on an acre 

 of pasture land there are often a million leafhoppers, 

 which consume unnoticed as much grass as a cow. 

 Were these not held in check by the birds which eat 

 them, they might increase so in numbers as to consume 

 all the grass. Instances are on record where the ab- 



