i 3 6 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Pp. 176. 40 cents ; Book IV. Pp. 216. 40 cents. 

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ffragmjeuts of ^cieujcje* 



Birds and Farm Pests. Mr. F. E. L. 



Beal, in a paper on Some Common Birds in 

 their Relation to Agriculture, observes that 

 whether a bird is injurious or beneficial de- 

 pends almost entirely on what it eats. If 

 crows or blackbirds are seen in numbers 

 about cornfields, or if woodpeckers are no- 

 ticed at work in an orchard, it is perhaps 

 not surprising that they are accused of doing 

 harm. Careful investigation, however, often 

 shows that they are actually destroying nox- 

 ious insects, and also that even those which 

 do harm at one season may compensate for 

 it by eating noxious species at another. In- 

 sects are eaten at all times by the majority 

 of land birds, and during the breeding sea- 

 son most kinds subsist largely and rear their 

 young exclusively on this food. When in- 



sects are unusually plentiful they are eaten 

 by many birds which ordinarily do not touch 

 them. Within certain limits birds feed upon 

 the kind of food that is most accessible. 

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 insects that are most easily obtained, pro- 

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 agreeable property. It is not probable that 

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 sect to look for another that is more appetiz- 

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 port of the theory that the selection of food 

 is restricted to any particular species of in- 

 sect, for it is evident that a bird eats those 

 which by its own method of seeking are 

 most easily obtained. Thus, a ground-feed- 

 ing bird eats those it finds among the dead 

 leaves and grass; a flycatcher captures en- 



