CROP ENEMIES AND FRIENDS 



229 



great damage to the grain fields of the West. The young birds 

 learn to fly just as grain begins to ripen, and the old birds 

 lead them to the grain fields. 



Crow. In the East the crow has as bad a reputation as a grain 

 eater as the red-winged blackbird has in the West. The Indians 

 call the crow the 'thief of the cornfield.' It pulls up and eats 

 seed corn that has been softened and sweetened by germination. 

 The crow also attacks corn when the ear is soft, tearing open the 

 husks and pecking the kernels. The ear thus exposed to the 

 weather is often rotted by rain. 



As a rule, however, crows destroy so many mice, grasshoppers, 

 bugs, cutworms, and other crop enemies that they more than 

 pay for the corn they eat. 



Harmful Birds. There are a few birds which do so much harm 

 that it outweighs the good they do. Among these are the sharp- 

 shinned hawk, Cooper's hawk, goshawk, and duck Ijawk. The 

 first two destroy poultry, and all of them feed on game and insect- 

 eating birds. 



The greatest bird pest in the United States is the English sparrow. 

 These sparrows were brought to this country from England about 

 sixty years ago, with the expectation that they would destroy the 

 insects on shade trees. Instead, they adopted a vegetable diet, 

 doing much injury to grain and fruit buds and blossoms. They 

 have increased enormously in numbers and have spread by millions 

 all over the country. 



English sparrows are noisy and quarrelsome, the enemies of 

 many insect-eating birds, and they are pests around houses. The 

 best method of destroying them is by poisoned grain exposed during 

 the winter months on places out of reach of poultry. 



