76 BIRD FRIENDS 



timating the number of insects required to fill a bushel 

 at 420,000, it would take 15,625 bushels of insects to feed 

 our birds for a single day, or 937,500 bushels for 60 days, 

 or 2,343,750 bushels for 150 days. 



Another Nebraska naturalist has estimated that 

 the birds of that State eat 170 carloads of insects 

 per day. 



It has been calculated that the birds of New York 

 State destroy more than 3,000,000 bushels of noxious 

 insects each season. 



Value of nestling birds. Special attention may be 

 called to the great service performed by birds when 

 feeding their young. As explained in a previous 

 chapter, nestlings require large amounts of food, 

 being fed every few minutes from sunrise to sunset. 

 This destruction of insects comes at a most oppor- 

 tune time, when the insects are present in great 

 numbers and before the parasitic insects can be de- 

 pended upon to reduce the pests. The chief food of 

 the nestlings is insects. Even when the adults feed 

 also on seeds, the young at first are fed largely on 

 insects. The most common kinds of food of nestlings 

 are caterpillars, grasshoppers, and spiders. A sug- 

 gestive estimate of the money value of nestlings has 

 been made in a government publication, from which 

 the following is taken : 



During the outbreak of Rocky Mountain locusts in 

 Nebraska, in 1874-77, Professor Samuel Aughey saw a 

 long-billed marsh wren carry 30 locusts to her young in an 



