THE BIRD DEPARTMENT 



85 



leaves and twigs of shrubs, chiselling in the trunks of 

 trees, and climbing about the branches; and each bird 

 has some adaptation, some modifications, that fit it to 

 its own peculiar food and method of securing it. 



BIRD LIFE IN FEBRUARY 



To all appearances it is still winter and, with all respect 

 to the ground hog, we are likely to have some very cold 

 weather. Perhaps we may yet have our heaviest snows. 

 Bird life too, still presents its winter aspect. The snow 

 buntings, redpolls, and tree sparrows linger about the 

 snow-covered fields and there are yet no signs of return- 

 ing migrants. It is during February that one learns to 

 expect some of the more unusual winter visitors. Having 

 consumed the food supply of their natural hunting 

 grounds, many species are given to roaming toward the 

 close of winter, appearing far out of their normal range. 

 Pine and evening grosbeaks, Bohemian waxwings, long- 

 spurs, crossbills, and snowy owls may be looked for al- 

 most anywhere. 



Before February has run its course, however, we can 

 expect some uneasiness to be shown by the earliest spring 



A TREE SWALLOW 



The swallow is teaching its young to capture insects on the wing. 



Swallows and other fly-catching birds have large mouths, and with 



their powerful, pointed wings they are experts at catching insects in 

 full flight. 



migrants. The horned larks will move northward and 

 become numerous up to the Canadian border, and through 

 the South the robins and bluebirds will desert their ac- 

 customed resorts and push toward the icy barrier. If 

 the last of the month is open, the early birds may reach 

 the northern states before the last of the month, perhaps 



A CARDINAL GROSBEAK 



Here is a bird with a bill fitted for cracking seeds. Although the bill 

 is heavy, it is finely pointed, and does not prevent its owner from 

 feeding on insects during the summer. 



only to meet with distress when overtaken by the sleet of 

 some March storm. But they are the harbingers of 

 spring. Grim Winter has lost his grip and they have 

 come to shout defiance. Let them be welcome. 



CONTROL OF LARCH MISTLETOE 



IN the forest regions of the Northwest mistletoe is so 

 abundant that the damage which it does assumes at 

 times a serious aspect. Recent investigations of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture have shown, 

 for example, that the deterioration of the western larch 

 in the more open and exposed stands of the Whitman 

 National Forest in the Blue Mountain section of Oregon 

 is due to mistletoe. Although not so valuable as yellow 

 pine and Douglas fir, the larch, when free from mistletoe, 

 produces large saw timber. Trees attacked in early life 

 by the larch mistletoe, however, seldom produce a good 

 grade of merchantable timber, and all infected trees show 

 poor health and reduced diameter or height. 



In a professional paper of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 317, it is recommended 

 that in making timber sales, all larches affected with 

 mistletoe be cut, whether the trees are merchantable or 

 not. The effect of thinning is to promote the develop- 

 ment of the parasite in the crown. It is desirable, there- 

 fore, to cut all infected trees, so far as this is practicable, 

 in lumbering operations. 



A NEW FORESTRY COURSE 



Three hundred and fifty-four students of the Univer- 

 sity of California have enrolled in the course in the 

 'Elements of Forestry," offered this year for the first 

 time by Professor Walter Mulford. This course is de- 

 signed to present a general picture of the relation of for- 

 estry to the every-day life of a nation. 



