SECRETARY'S REPORT. 115 



ular. They undoubtedly are very beneficial in destroying 

 great numl)ers of caterpillars and injurious grubs, but I must 

 confess that the injury they do by killing young birds in the 

 nest, and devouring every egg they can find, nearly, if not quite, 

 counterbalances the good. I have been, hitherto, the champion 

 of both crows and jays, but when I find that a good proportion 

 of their food in the breeding season consists of young birds, my 

 faith in them is considerably shaken. 



I had often noticed the skulking habits of the blue jay in the 

 orchards and pastures in the breeding season ; I seldom heard 

 his note, but every time that I discovered him he was silently 

 flitting through the foliage, apparently searching for sometliing 

 that he was afraid would hear him. 



On following him, he almost invariably attacked a l^ird on 

 her nest, (one of the species smaller than himself,) drove her 

 from her brood and killed them. Now each of those birds 

 would, in the course of the year, probably, kill as many insects 

 as Jumsclf, and it does not require any great skill in mathematics 

 to discover that if he destroys, on an average, ten of these birds 

 daily, through the breeding season, he inflicts on agriculture an 

 injury that he could not, for the whole remainder of the year, 

 remedy. I do not advise the killing of any birds except the 

 hawks, Init I cannot, certainly, recommend the jays to the mercy 

 of the farmqr. 



The others of the land birds are not particularly interesting 

 to the agriculturist, although the quails and partridges that 

 roam over our fields in small flocks destroy great numbers of 

 insects, and what is still better, the seeds of many noxious 

 weeds. A quail prefers the seeds of the common wormwood to 

 Indian corn, and I have killed them with their crops distended 

 almost to bursting with these seeds. When we reflect that the 

 bird is possessed- with a gizzard strong enough to -completely 

 destroy the germ of the seeds, we perceive at once his immense 

 utility on the farm. 



I have endeavored, in this brief paper, to present the pecu- 

 liarities of some of our familiar birds in as favorable light as I 

 could, to an agricultural audience. Our birds are not generally 

 well appreciated, nor valued according to their deserts. Even 

 in Europe, where for ages the scientific labors of multitudes of 

 her best men have, until very lately, failed to secure protection 



