306 



BRANCH CHORDATA 



Whore man has not interfered, nature has a well-balanced 

 arrangement for the protection of his crops. The grasses and 

 low-growing herbs are protected from such enemies as the cut- 

 worm, caterpillar, and grasshopper by the chipping sparrow, 

 robin, and bluebird, and, farther afield, by the quail, meadow- 

 lark, blackbird, and field sparrow. In the edge of the woods are 



Fig. 251. Bluebird at edge of nest with grasshopper in mouth. (From 

 photograph by Rev. P. B. Peabody.) (Bulletin 17, Biological Survey, 

 U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) 



the chewinks and brown thrashers; and in the deep woods, the 

 ruffed grouse; while along the fresh-water streams and ponds may 

 be seen the woodcocks, sandpipers, and snipes. In the trees 

 "the woodpeckers, assisted by the nuthatches and creepers, 

 look after insects on and beneath the bark of both the trunk and 

 the branches." 1 The chickadees, bluebirds, thrushes, warblers, 



1 Weed and Dearborn, " Birds in Their Relation to Man/' 



