298 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



nature so that the earth shall yield that vegetation which "shall 

 be meat" for man, three vicious elements must be contended 

 with, namely, (1) the weeds, (2) the insects, and (3) the 

 rodents. The rapidity with which these pests increase, and the 

 damage they are capable of doing, is almost incomprehensible. 



It is also recorded that God said, "cursed is the ground 

 for my sake ; in sorrow shall thou eat all the days of thy life ; 

 thorns also thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt 

 eat of the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 

 eat bread until thou return unto the ground." Since that 

 record was made a great warfare has been waged in this 

 world, between good and evil, and this has been true, not only 

 in the world of morals but also in the vegetable world. By 

 "thorns and thistles," as used in the quotation, thorny and 

 prickly plants alone are not meant, but in a broader sense, all 

 useless and troublesome plants are included. One needs only 

 to count the seeds produced by a single plant of purslane, 

 platain or thistle to be convinced of the prodigious repro- 

 ductive power of our common weeds. But for the warfare 

 that is being waged against them by man and his allies, the 

 weeds would take exclusive possession of our gardens and 

 fields and we would be without bread. It may be that in that 

 condition, we, like the savage, could subsist upon the wild 

 fruits, and the flesh of wild animals, and be able to clothe our- 

 selves with their skins, but it would be impossible for us to live 

 the lives of civilized beings under such conditions. 



While it is true that man shall earn his bread by the sweat 

 of his brow, it is also true that by his labor alone, he cannot 

 have bread to eat. He is a dependent being and without the 

 allies which nature so bountifully supplies to him, he would be 

 utterly powerless in keeping under control its evil and destruc- 

 tive forces. In this work our birds are our most effective allies 

 and helpers, and notably is this true of our seed-eating birds 

 in keeping the weeds under control. This valuable service to 

 man is, in the main, rendered by the bird family Fringillidse, 

 to which belong the sparrows, finches, buntings, and gros- 

 beaks, and which contains more than one seventh of the North 

 American species of birds. Dr. S. D. Judd has made a careful 

 study of the feeding habits of many of these birds and in a 



