THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BIRDS. 25 



tation (75). Chas. W. Smiley (in W. E. Sisty, Bien. Kept. Fish Com. Colo., 

 1884) is quoted as saying that a "marsh hen" shot at the Washington carp 

 ponds contained 38 young carp, which would naturally be the case about a 

 hatchery. 



LIMICOLAE Shore Birds 



(Avocets, Stilts, Phalaropes, Woodcocks, Snipes, Sandpipers, Curlews, Plovers, 

 Turnstones, Etc.) 



This order contains some of the finest game birds the woodcocks, snipes 

 and plovers. Some of the species are also of great value as destroyers of 

 insects, a fact not generally recognized. Unfortunately many of them are 

 diminishing rapidly in numbers (76). 



McAtee says that 9 species are known to take mosquitoes, 4 take horse- 

 flies, 8 take crane flies, 6 take weevils and 24 take grasshoppers (77). Stom- 

 achs of 149 birds of 23 species nearly all contained locusts, all contained in- 

 sects of some kind, and few contained anything else (78). 



Ho well (79) reports that 48 stomachs of the upland plover were filled 

 with weevils. According to McAtee and Beal (80), in 163 stomachs of the same 

 species 97% of the contents was animal matter, chiefly injurious or neutral 

 insects. The killdeer, so abundant throughout Colorado, is decidedly in- 

 sectivorous. One stomach in California contained only grasshoppers (81), 

 while 9 in Nebraska all contained insects, 268 locusts, 190 other insects, and in 

 one a few seeds (82). Three nestling sandpipers (solitary and Pirbilof) con- 

 tained only insects, with the exception of 1 seed and 1 spider, and 4 nestling 

 woodcocks contained only caterpillars (83). 



GALLINAE- Grouse, Quail, Turkeys, Etc. 



As in case of the shore birds, various species of this order have been ruth- 

 lessly slaughtered. Sportsmen are now demanding their protection, and in- 

 vestigation of their food habits shows that the farmer has even greater 

 reason for preserving some of the species, especially the quail, though some 

 of the grouse which inhabit the grain-growing regions have been known to 

 damage unthreshed grain in the autumn when they were more abundant. 



The table on next page is a condensation of information contained in 

 Judd's reports (84), ignoring the fractions. 



When we consider the size of these birds and large amount of food 

 they require, the percentage of insects and weed seeds means an enormous 

 number of these pests destroyed. One bobwhite contained 5,000 seeds of the 

 foxtail grass, another contained 10,000 pigweed seeds, and a California quail 

 contained 2,000 dog fennel seeds. As with other birds, the downy young 



(75) Aughey, First Kept. U. S. Entom. Com., App. II, pp. 56-57. 



(76) Fisher, Two Vanishing Game Birds: The Woodcock and the Wood Duck, TJ. S. 

 Dept. Agric., Yearbook for 1901, pp. 447-458. McAtee, Our Vanishing Shorebirds, U. S. 

 Biol. Surv., Circular No. 79. Hornaday, Our Vanishing Wild Life. 1913. 



(77) McAtee, U. S. Biol. Surv., Circular No. 79, pp. 2, 4, 6. 



(78) Aughey, First Rept. U. S. Entom. Com., App. II, pp. 49-55. 



(79) Howell, U. S. Biol. Surv., Bull. No. 29, p. 20. 



(80) McAtee and Beal, U. S. Dept. Agric., Farmers' Bull. No. 497, pp. 15-16. 



(81) Bryant, Univ. Cali. Pub. in Zool., Vol. XI, No. 1, p. 9. 



(82) Aughey, First Rept. U. S. Entom. Comm., App. II, p. 49. 



(83) Judd, Food of Nestling Birds, U. S. Dept. Agric., Yearbook for 1900, pp. 

 432-433. 



(84) Judd. U. S. Biol. Surv., Bull. No. 21 (Quails), and Bull. No. 24 (Grouse and 

 Turkeys). See also Judd, U. S. Dept. Agric., Yearbook for 1903, pp. 193-204. 



