CHAPTER XXIV. 

 THE FOOD OF NESTLING BIRDS.* 



While adult birds may be valuable to farmers and 

 fruit-growers at any time of the year, they are more 

 valuable at the season of the year when they are raising 

 their young. And whatever the food preferences of the 

 adult bird, the nestling is quite likely to be fed on soft- 

 bodied animals such as insects. Also, at this time the 

 body-building processes are so rapid that the food needs 

 of the young bird are greatest and it eats more than at 

 any other time of its life. 



The nesting season of birds corresponds to the 

 season of the year when agricultural activities are at 

 their height, and the nests of the birds which are valuable 

 to the farmer are always placed in the vicinity of his grow- 

 ing crops. On an average, most birds raise two or three 

 broods of nestlings in a year, with from three to five in a 

 brood, though the broods of the quails and the owls 

 include more than either of these numbers. In the South 

 a spring clutch of quail's eggs may number as high as 

 thirty-two; but the autumn nestful is rarely more than 

 ten, about what it is in the North. The barn owl lays 

 from five to eleven eggs; the marsh owl about six; while 

 the screech owl may number nine eggs before she begins 

 sitting; the number of eggs for these owls varies from 

 four to nine. 



*For much of the material under this heading the author is in- 

 debted to various investigators in the Government Department of 

 Agriculture, notably Mr. Judd of the Biological Survey. 



287 



