STATE POMOI-OGICAL SOCIETY. I3 



From the hatching of the young of our insectivorous birds 

 until the hour of flight, is only from one to three or four weeks, 

 and in that brief period the birds must grow to nearly the size 

 of the parents and must develop all organs, muscles, bones and 

 functions, and at the same time grow long flight feathers to 

 enable them to wing their way through the air. Hence the 

 necessity for the enormous amount of animal or insect food 

 which best serves to promote such bone, flesh and feather 

 growth. The parent birds, because of their activity, require 

 nearly as much food as the young. Therefore the birds of a 

 township, a county, or a state, must consume enormous quan- 

 tities of insects, most of which are injurious or potentially 

 injurious. 



Reed estimates that the birds of Massachusetts consume 2,560,- 

 000,000 insects or 21,000 bushels each day. I beUeve that Pro- 

 fessor Lawrence Bruner estimates that the birds of Nebraska, 

 a much larger state, eat 170 carloads daily. Birds have tre- 

 mendous appetites, and we can easily see why they do so much 

 good when feeding on our insect foes, and so much harm when 

 feeding on our fruit crops, but it is interesting to note that 

 we can count upon the lingers of one hand practically all the 

 birds in Maine that are really injurious to the agriculturist. 



The services of birds to mankind are of greater value in 

 field or forest than in orchard or garden. Birds cannot nest 

 in the garden, as the operations of tillage drive them out, and 

 unless you have trees, shrubbery and vines in which the birds 

 can nest you do not get so much benefit from them in the 

 garden. Nevertheless, the swallows and the night hawks and 

 other birds which take their food in flight come in and eat 

 insects that otherwise would destroy crops, and birds like the 

 robin are very useful in the garden because they dig into the 

 ground and eat white grubs, wire worms, and other insects that 

 destroy the roots of plants. 



We can use insecticides and other means to control insect 

 pests in the garden or orchard, but we cannot spray with poisons 

 all the trees in all our woods, and we cannot drench with insec- 

 ticides the grass that our horses and cattle eat. Therefore we are 

 absolutely dependent upon the birds and other natural enemies 

 of insects to protect the forest trees and the grass crops and 

 pastures of the country from any undue increase of insect pests. 

 Wherever birds exist in sufficient numbers, they perform their 



