170 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the farmer. Valuable at all times and at all places favored by their 

 presence, swallows have a peculiar value to the southern cotton 

 planter, for they prey upon the cotton boll weevil as it flies over the 

 fields on its errand of destruction. The more that swallows can be 

 induced to nest in the cotton States, and the more they can be in- 

 creased in the North, so as to add to the number that migrate through 

 the South, the better will it be for the cotton planter, and incidentally 

 for the whole country. Especially important is it that swallows be 

 protected from the assaults of the English sparrow, which covets 

 their nesting sites. Not only do these pests drive away swallows from 

 their nests, but they even throw out their eggs and kill the helpless 

 young. 



VEGETARIAN BIRDS AND THEIR FOOD HABITS. 



It is not possible strictly to divide small birds by their diet into 

 vegetarian and insectivorous kinds, for while many birds live largely 

 upon vegetable substances some almost exclusively there are very 

 few that do not, at least occasionally, eat insects (all of them feed 

 their young upon insects) ; and, it may be added, there are not many 

 insect-eating birds that do not, at least occasionally, vary their diet 

 by berries or other vegetable substances. Pigeons perhaps are more 

 exclusively vegetarian than other birds, the common turtle dove, for 

 instance, apparently never eating insects except when they happen to 

 be contained in seeds or other vegetable food in the form of eggs or 

 larvae. For present purposes, however, those birds may be considered 

 vegetarian which live chiefly and most of the year upon vegetable 

 food. 



It is among this group naturally that we look for enemies of the 

 farmer, for cultivated grains and fruits are often so much more ac- 

 cessible than the wild varieties that it would be strange indeed if 

 birds had not discovered their good qualities and promptly availed 

 themselves of their opportunities. 



CROWS. Crows are as widely as they are unfavorably known for 

 their depredations on corn, especially when it is just sprouting, and 

 their record is further blackened by their appetite for the eggs and 

 nestlings of all small birds and of game birds. Bad as crows are, 

 they yet have redeeming traits, for they devour great numbers of in- 

 sects, especially grasshoppers and cutworms, and they kill also many 

 meadow mice and other small rodents. The economic status of the 

 crow is, of all birds, one of the most difficult to determine, but the 

 balance is undoubtedly in the bird's favor. The offering of bounties 

 to insure the destruction of crows is mistaken policy, for, as stated 

 above, the crow performs important services to agriculture, and his 

 extermination would be a loss to the country. 



