VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAX. 67 



that the bird referred to is undoubtedly Franklin's Gull 

 (Lams franklinii) , which occurs in enormous flocks about 

 the small fresh- water lakes of the northwest, and feeds in 

 great companies on Orthoptera of all sorts. The Gulls w r ere 

 practically canonized by the grateful Mormons, and protected 

 by both law and public sentiment, as a recognition of their 

 worth. 



Similar services were performed by birds during the great 

 locust ravages which followed the settlement of the Missis- 

 sippi valley. When large swarms of locusts appeared, nearly 

 all birds, from the tiny Kinglet to the great Whooping Crane, 

 feel on them. Fish-eating birds, like the Great Blue Heron, 

 flesh-eating birds, like the Hawks and Owls, shore birds, 

 Ducks, Geese, Gulls, all joined with the smaller land birds 

 in the general feast. Prof. Samuel Aughey learned this 

 by dissecting birds and observing their feeding habits in 

 Nebraska. In a paper published by him in 1877, but not 

 often quoted, he gives some of the practical results of the 

 work done by birds in protecting crops from the mighty 

 swarms of locusts which were devastating most of that 

 region. He says : 



In the spring of 1865 the locusts hatched out in countless numbers in 

 northeastern Nebraska. Very few fields of corn and the cereal grains 

 escaped some damage. Some fields were entirely destroyed, while 

 others were hurt to the amount of from ten to seventy-five per cent. 

 One field of corn northwest of Dakota City was almost literally covered 

 with locusts, and there the indications were that not a stalk would 

 escape. After, and about the time the corn was up, the Yellow-headed 

 Blackbirds in large numbers made this field their feeding ground. 

 Visiting the field frequently, I could see a gradual diminution of the 

 number of the locusts. Other birds, especially the Plovers, helped the 

 Yellow-heads ; and, although some of the corn had to be replanted once, 

 yet it was the birds that made the crop that was raised possible at all. 

 During the same season I visited Pigeon Creek valley, in this county, 

 and I found among the eaten-up wheat fields one where the damage 

 done was not over five per cent. The Irishman who pointed it out to me 

 ascribed it to the work of the birds, chief among which were the Black- 

 bird and Plover, with a few Quail and Prairie Chickens. 



Professor Aughey speaks of a locality where, on several 

 old fields, locusts hatched to the number of about three hun- 



