SIEUR DE MONTS NATIONAL MONUMENT 7 



THE ECONOMIC REASON 



The considerations which have led to an appreciation 

 of the economic importance of our wild birds have been one 

 of the immediate results of scientific ornithology, and make, 

 perhaps, its most direct appeal. It should not be forgotten, 

 however, that here, as elsewhere, the more purely scientific 

 research — the pursuit of special knowledge for its own sake 

 alone — has been the necessary and inevitable forerunner of 

 the practical application which has followed, and that it was 

 the interest of the professional ornithologist in the food 

 supply of particular species that opened the way to a 

 correct estimation of the astonishing part played by birds as 

 destroyers of the various insect pests. 



It has been stated, indeed, and not without good reason, 

 that were it not for their feathered enemies, the voracious and 

 rapidly multiplying insect hosts would occasion such havoc 

 among our trees and crops that the green earth would quick- 

 ly become a desert incapable of supporting any form of life 

 whateve-*. For nearly all birds are insect destroyers, while 

 many species feed exclusively upon these devastating 

 creatures. 



Woodpeckers, chicadees, nuthatches, and other smaller 

 tree-creepers cleanse the various layers of bark from the 

 grubs, eggs, and larvae which infest them. Warblers simi- 

 larly act as scavengers among the leaves. Swallows and fly- 

 catchers pursue their quarry among the tiny winged denizens 

 of the air. Thrushes, sparrows, and the ground feeders hunt 

 through the herbage and undergrowth; while even the smaller 

 hawks and other birds of prey subsist largely upon grass- 

 hoppers and such vermin. 



The number of insects devoured, in these various ways, 

 is almost incredible. 



"It will be found stated," says Dr. Chapman, Curator of 

 Ornithology in the American Museum of Natural History, 

 "that the stomach of a single Cedar Waxwing contained one 

 hundred canker worms, that one Cuckoo had eaten two 

 hundred and fifty caterpillars, that four hundred and fifty 



