404 RELATIONS OF BIRDS TO AGRICULTURE 



of our other woodpeckers. It occasionally takes a little fruit, 

 and is reported to eat grain, though very rarely. On the whole, 

 it is a useful bird, and we are attached to it because we associate 

 its characteristic call with the promising days of early spring, 

 before the leaves appear on the trees. 



The Black Tern is found abundantly about prairie sloughs in 





Fia. 396. Barn swallow. (U. S. Biol. Survey.) 



the West. It is perhaps the most representative of the group in 

 the upper Mississippi Valley. The tern is a good friend of the 

 farmer, for when the sloughs are dry, and even before, they con- 

 sume large numbers of grasshoppers. We illustrate the common 

 tern in figure 398. 



Franklin's Rosy Gull is a bird found in prairie sections of the 

 West. It is a voracious eater of grasshoppers. 



