What Birds Do for Us 



in air express the very poetry of motion ; but surely 

 their terrestrial habits have to do with the very prose 

 of existence, for self-constituted health officers are 

 they, scavengers of the fields, that rid them of pu- 

 trefying animal matter. Instead of burying a dead 

 chicken, dog, cat, or even a large domestic animal, 

 the easy-going Negro lets it lie where it dropped, 

 knowing full well that before it becomes offensive 

 the vultures will have begun to feed upon it. In 

 some of the smaller cities the vultures mingle freely 

 with the loungers about the market-place, gorging 

 upon the refuse thrown about for the only street 

 cleaners in sight. Where robins, woodpeckers, and 

 many species of small song-birds are so lightly re- 

 garded as to be killed in shocking quantities and 

 not always for food, the vultures are carefully pro- 

 tected by the Southern people, who, not yet realiz- 

 ing the greater value of insectivorous birds to the 

 farmer, do nevertheless know enough to throw the 

 arm of the law around their feathered scavengers. 

 As if enough services that birds render us had 

 not already been enumerated in this list, which is 

 merely suggestive and very far indeed from being 

 complete, the birds that rid our beaches of putre- 

 fying rubbish must not be forgotten. While several 

 sea and beach birds share this task, it is to the gulls 

 that we are chiefly indebted. In the wake of gar- 

 bage scows that put out to deep water from the har- 

 bors of the seacoast and Great Lakes where our 

 large cities are situated, and following the ocean 

 liners for the food thrown overboard from the ship's 

 galleys; or resting in the estuaries of the larger 

 rivers where the refuse floats down toward the tide, 



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