PART VI 



OTHER ANIMALS. 



BIRDS IN THEIR RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. 



BIRDS play an important part in relation to agriculture. This 

 has long been known. There seems to be a tendency to dwell 

 on the harm they do rather than the good. Whether the bird 

 is injurious or beneficial depends almost entirely upon what it 

 eats. Because the harm that a bird does is often more evident than the 

 good it does, it is frequently classed by farmers among the injurious 

 birds to agriculture, when really it is decidedly beneficial. As in- 

 sects constitute a large part of the diet of our common birds they 

 often become destroyers of noxious insects, which is too often not 

 appreciated. 



As objects of human care and interest birds occupy a place 

 filled by no other living things, and the various movements to pro- 

 tect and foster them would be fully justified were there no returns 

 other than esthetic. Only the thoughtless and the ignorant still hold 

 that the graceful forms and beautiful plumage of these masterpieces 

 of nature serve their highest purpose when worn on a hat for a brief 

 season, to be then cast aside and forgotten, the plumage dimmed and 

 faded, the beautiful songs quenched forever. 



While by no means insensible to the higher value of birds, the 

 farmer who is asked to aid in measures for their protection is entitled 

 to inquire as to the practical purpose they subserve and how far they 

 may be expected to return his outlay of time, trouble, and expense. 



Since most birds eat insects and since many eat practically 

 nothing else, it is their insect-eating habits that chiefly invite in- 

 quiry, for so active and persistent are birds in the pursuit of insects 

 tnat they constitute their most important enemies. 



When birds are permitted to labor undisturbed they thoroughly 

 police both earth and air. The thrushes, sparrows, larks, and wrens 

 search the surface of the earth for insects and their Iarva3 or hunt 

 among the leaves and peer under logs and refuse for them. The war- 

 blers, vireos, creepers, and nuthatches with their microscopic eyes 

 scan every part of the tree or shrub trunk, branches, and leaves 

 and few hidden creatures escape them. The woodpeckers, not con- 

 tent with carefully scrutinizing the bark and limbs of trees, dig into 

 decayed and worm-eaten wood and drag forth the burrowing Iarva3, 

 which in their hidden retreats are safe from other enemies. The 

 flycatchers, aided by the warblers, are ever on the alert to snap up 

 insects when flying among trees and branches; while th^ swallows 

 and nighthawks skim over the pastures and patrol the air high above 



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