8 SIEUR DE MONTS NATIONAL MONtJMENt 



plantlice were found in the stomach of one Chicadee, that a 

 Nighthawk had made a meal on sixty grasshoppers, that a 

 Fhcker had devoured one thousand chinch bugs, that a 

 Scarlet Tanager was seen to eat six hundred and thirty gypsy 

 moth caterpillars in eighteen minutes, or at the rate of two 

 thousand one hundred an hour; while a Maryland Yellow- 

 throat ate three thousand five hundred plantlice in forty 

 minutes, or at the rate of five thousand two hundred seventy 

 an hour!" 



If we add that the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture has estimated the loss to agricultural interests oc- 

 casioned by insects at about Eight Hundred Million Dollars 

 a year, and the loss to the interests of forestry at One Hun- 

 dred Million Dollars, we can form some rough estimate of the 

 services of our wild birds! 



As devourers of the seeds of noxious weeds, also, the 

 birds are of inestimable value to the agriculturist. 



Dr. Chapman states "that seven hundred seeds of the 

 pigeon grass were taken from the stomach of a Tree Spar- 

 row by Professor Beal, who estimates that this species de- 

 stroys no less than eight hundred and seventy-five tons of 

 weed seed annually in the single state of Iowa; that one 

 thousand pigweed seeds were found in the stomach of a 

 Snow Bunting; that a Bob-white contained five thousand 

 seeds of pigeon grass; while a Mourning Dove had eaten the 

 enormous number of seven thousand five hundred seeds of 

 the yellow-wood sorrel." 



It should be mentioned, further, that the hawks and 

 owls yearly destroy an enormous quantity of noxious rodents; 

 while the crows and gulls of the North, and the vultures in the 

 South, perform a most necessary duty as scavengers. 



Nor, finally, let us be ungrateful to the wing-feeding 

 and marsh-inhabiting birds who are responsible for the de- 

 struction of innumerable hosts of mosquitos and other di- 

 sease-conveying insects.* How important this last function 

 of our avifauna may be, Science has not as yet determined; 



*Birds of Eastern North America, by Frank M. Chapman, pp. 99-103. 



