170 CONSERVATION OP CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



seed per day, and on that basis, in a state the size of Iowa, 

 the species would consume about 800 tons of seeds annually. 



In passing, it should be pointed out, however, that the 

 weed-destroying power of graminivorous birds may be ex- 

 aggerated if the question is not investigated with great 

 thoroughness, for while the powerful gizzards of some birds 

 may grind up the hardest-coated seeds, in other cases seeds 

 may be capable of germination after passing through the 

 digestive tract, as Colhnge has shown in a number of cases 

 in English birds. In such cases the birds would act as dis- 

 seminators of weed seeds. Then again, in the case of in- 

 sectivorous birds, besides destroying noxious insects, they 

 will destroy various kinds of insects which are useful by 

 reason of their parasitic habits upon noxious insects. These 

 facts indicate that the question of the economic status of a 

 bird is not always an easy matter to determine, and de- 

 mands thorough investigation in each case. 



Furthermore, in certain , instances useful birds eat grain 

 or fruit. The horned larks occasionally eat grain, vegetable 

 food constituting about 80 per cent of their total food. Six- 

 sevenths of this total amount of vegetable food consists of 

 the seeds of such weeds as foxtail, amaranth, ragweed, and 

 bindweed. It surely is not too much to ask that, in view 

 of the good they effect, a little injury shall be overlooked, 

 especially as they make no charges for the good work they 

 accomplish. It has sometimes seemed to me that in the 

 case of those useful birds which sometimes take to fruit- 

 eating, it is far cheaper to protect the fruit from the birds 

 than from the insects. As insecticides birds are the cheapest 

 and most generally efficient that can be found. 



The much-maligned crows are to no small extent friends 

 of the farmer. In my investigations in England I found 

 that at certain periods of the year they consumed large 

 quantities of cutworms and root-feeding insect larvae. In 

 the United States Beal has found that the crow deserves 

 protection and not wholesale destruction. The crow is an 



