DOES IT PAY THE FARMER TO PROTECT BIRDS? 



By H. W. HENSHAW, 

 Administrative Assistant, Biological Survey. 



As objects of human care and interest birds occupy a place filled 

 by no other living things, and the various movements to protect 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 far- 

 mer 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 inquiry, for 

 so active and persistent are birds in the pursuit of insects that 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 larvae 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 content 

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

 cayed and worm-eaten wood and drag forth the burrowing larva?, 

 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 the swallows 

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

 the tree tops for such of the enemy as have escaped pursuit below. 

 Thus each family plays its part in the never-ending warfare, and the 

 number of insects annually consumed by the combined hosts is simply 

 incalculable. It is well that this is so, for so vast is the number of 

 insects and so great is the quantity of vegetation required for 

 their subsistence that the existence of every green thing w r ould be 



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