40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



eat their fruit or those that visit their corn fields. How 

 many of us are aware that even the water birds are beneficial 

 to agriculture? 



Usefulness of the Water and Shore Birds. 



Gulls, terns and many so-called shore birds often feed 

 largely on insects. In England, Avhere sea gulls are now 

 protected, they will follow the plow in their search for 

 grubs and other injurious insects. In this country they are 

 so persecuted that they usually keep well away from inhab- 

 ited shores, hardly daring to trust themselves near the 

 habitations of man except about our city harbors, where 

 shooting is prohibited. As an illustration of the usefulness 

 of gulls during insect invasions, let me cite the oft-related 

 experience of the early Mormons at Salt Lake. It is said 

 that soon after they emigrated to Utah the black cricket 

 (^Anabrus simplex) appeared upon their crops in immense 

 swarms, destroying the entire crop of wheat and other grains, 

 and reducing many of the settlers nearly to the point of 

 starvation. The next year these pests appeared again. Says 

 Hon. Geo. Q. Cannon, "Promising fields of wheat in the 

 morning were by evening as smooth as a man's hand, 

 devoured by the crickets." At this juncture sea gulls came 

 by thousands, miraculously, or providentially, as the Mor- 

 mons believed. Their flocks whitened the blackened fields, 

 and they destroyed the crickets so utterly that they were 

 almost eradicated, thus saving the remainder of the crop, 

 which was all the half-starved Mormons had to rely upon for 

 food for the next season. The thankful people passed a law 

 forbidding any one to kill these birds, and fixing a penalty 

 for the offence. This occurrence was witnessed by many 

 people, and a number of accounts of it have been published.* 



Dr. A. K. Fisher of the Department of Agriculture says 

 the gull referred to is Franklin's gull (Larus Franklini), 

 which occurs in enormous flocks in the north-west, and feeds 

 in such companies on grasshoppers, crickets and similar 

 insects, f 



* Report of the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, Townend Glover, 

 Entomoloijist, 1871, page 79. Second report United States Entomological Commis- 

 sion, 1878-79, page 166. " Agriculture of Massachusetts," 1871, page 26. 

 t " Insect Life," Vol. 7, No. 3, page 275. 



