food of this bird, he finds that many of the most important 

 insect pests of the United States are eaten in quantities. 

 Cucumber beetles, bean leaf beetles. May beetles, click beetles 

 and their progeny the wireworms, weevils, potato beetles, 

 spinach flea beetles, grape vine beetles, corn bill bugs, chinch 

 bugs, cut-worms, cotton worms, boll worms, southern tobacco 

 worms, army worms, garden caterpillars, grasshoppers, lo- 

 custs and ants are found in its bill of fare. It is one of the 

 few birds that are very destructive to the Colorado potato 

 beetle and the chinch bug. Without question the bob-white 

 is one of the birds that the farmer should strive to protect 

 The ruffed grouse, the heath hen, the wild turkey, the in- 

 troduced pheasants, the woodcock and the snipe, — all have 

 a greater or less value as insect destroyers, and most of these 

 birds feed upon the seeds of weeds. 



Wild ducks ma}' be of great service during any outbreak 

 of insect pests in the fields. They are destructive to weed 

 seeds, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, locusts and army worms. 

 Most of the non-game birds of the farm are particularly 

 beneficial. In a report of the Secretary of Agriculture on 

 the work of the Biological Survey, transmitted to Congress 

 with a special message by President Roosevelt on Dec. 21, 

 1907, it is estimated that the sparrows of the United States 

 saved the farmers of the country in 1906 $35,000,000 by the 

 destruction of weeds; and that a single species of hawk saves 

 the farmers of the western States $175,500 a year by the 

 destruction of grasshoppers and field mice. It will pay the 

 farmer, therefore, to promote the protection of nearly all the 

 birds of the farm, and to lend his influence to the enforce- 

 ment of the game laws and bird laws, for the birds that are 

 distinctly injurious are not protected. 



The Economic Value of Game Mammals. 



The native game mammals of Massachusetts consist of 

 squirrels, hares, commonly called rabbits, and deer. The 

 woodchuck, raccoon, fox and other predatory or destructive 

 mammals, although hunted, are usually classed as vermin by 

 the gamekeeper, but some of them yield valuable fur. Squir- 

 rels are of some service as tree planters, for they distribute 



