insect life. The chickadee, from its being an all-the-year- 

 round resident, is particularly useful in eating eggs of plant 

 lice, of canker worms, and of tent caterpillars. Four stom- 

 achs or crops of chickadees examined, showed, as a result of 

 a single day's feed, 1,028 eggs of canker worms, while in one 

 of the stomachs there were 150 eggs of plant lice. With the 

 chickadees in winter, one frequently sees the downy wood- 

 pecker, another useful resident, as is also the brown creeper 

 and the nut hatch. Almost all of our woodpeckers are de- 

 vourers of grubs working on shade trees. 



Most of our hawks and owls prey upon rabbits, gophers, and 

 squirrels, field mice, etc. Some of our smaller hawks, notably 

 the sparrow hawk, eat insects. Wrong impressions prevail 

 regarding this group of birds and the farmer's boy has felt 

 justified in shooting every hawk and owl met with, under the 

 impression that he was doing agriculture a good turn there- 

 by. As intimated above, many of our hawks and owls are 

 decidedly useful. Crows also frequently pick up white grubs 

 turned up by the plow and we have seen both blackbirds and 

 crows in large numbers eating grasshoppers in stubble fields. 

 Of course there are times when a farmer or poultry raiser or 

 berry raiser is justified in resorting to a gun, but such times 

 should be rare. 



The cuckoos, both yellow-billed and black-billed, are fond 

 of hairy caterpillars the tent caterpillars and fall web worms, 

 for example. The rose-breasted grosbeak is not only a beau- 

 tiful bird, and fine singer, but a good bug catcher as well. 

 We have observed it eating grasshoppers and potato beetles, 

 and it is known to consume canker worms, army worms, cut- 

 worms, and chinch bugs. The gulls flying on our prairies and 

 their close allies, the small and graceful terns do the farmers 

 a good turn (no pun intended) by catching grasshoppers. 



Amongst our game birds, the quail gets most of its grain 

 after the crop is harvested. It pays for it by eating many 

 injurious insects potato worms, wire worms, cutworms, and 

 others. Over 100 chinch bugs were found in the crop of a 

 quail shot early in the morning. It is almost a pity that this 

 bird is not constantly protected. The same might be said of 

 the ground or mourning dove, which is included in our game 



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