THE OOLOGIST 



113 



sub-species. Set of two eggs taken 

 near Santa Paula, Calif., in June, 1904. 

 Set of three eggs July 13, 1907 and 

 another nest July 24, 1910, containing 

 three eggs and one young bird near 

 Compton, Calif. Of the many sets 

 taken by Mr. Jay in Los Angeles 

 County the earliest date was three 

 young May 10, 1901, and the latest 

 date, two eggs August 20, 1911. Of 

 the sets taken by Mr. Schneider near 

 Anaheim his latest is four eggs July 

 19, 1900. The earliest breeding record 

 of which I have knowledge is the set 

 of two found in San Bernardina Val- 

 ley, in May, 1882, and recorded in 

 Bendire's N. A. Birds. Aside from 

 published records probably every large 

 collection of eggs contains sets. I 

 have had sets in my collection from 

 both California and Colorado. 



J. Claire Wood. 

 There was no intention of conveying 

 the idea that the article in the June 

 OOLOGIST was a description of a 

 FIRST finding of the breeding place 

 of the California Cuckoo. The Cali- 

 fornia Cuckoo is not confined to Cali- 

 fornia, it breeds over a large territory, 

 and its nesting habits are well known. 

 —Editor. 



The Economic Value of Birds. 



Although we all appreciate the fact 

 that birds are of great value to the 

 agriculturist it seems as if some of 

 our enthusiastic protectionists greatly 

 overestimate their value as weed and 

 insect destroyers and when they base 

 their arguments for more protective 

 laws on statements that are altogether 

 unreasonable and absurd it is only nat- 

 ural that people should be inclined to 

 doubt the wisdom of passing more 

 laws on the strength of mis-stated 

 facts. 



Some of our distinguished ornitholo- 

 gists dissect a series of stomachs of 

 some particular species of bird, and 



after finding out how many weed seeds 

 and insects are therein contained they 

 figure out how much actual damage 

 the said weeds and insects could pos- 

 sibly do to agriculture under condi- 

 tions most favorable to them. 



Then the protectionist claims that 

 the birds have saved that amount of 

 value to the country. This is wrong, — ■ 

 for it makes it appear that the good 

 accomplished by the birds is many 

 times greater than it really is. The 

 fact of the matter is that many of 

 these seeds or insects are taken from 

 land where there is such an abund- 

 ance of them left after the birds are 

 through feeding that the amount de- 

 stroyed by the birds produces no no- 

 ticeable effect on the supply. 



Many of the seeds or insects would 

 perish from natural causes before they 

 could do any harm, even if the birds 

 did not eat them. 



We will grant that if there were 

 enough seed and insect eating birds 

 on a certain area of territory the 

 amount of good they could do would 

 be apparent to anyone, for this has 

 been demonstrated occasionally dur- 

 ing a plague of insects when birds 

 have appeared in sufficient numbers 

 to check what would otherwise have 

 been a much more serious damage to 

 the crops. 



But to say that this commonly hap- 

 pens is a gross error, for insect-eating 

 birds have never been common enough 

 in this country to accomplish any such 

 purpose, except in a few isolated local 

 cases which only serve to emphasize 

 the fact that it is unusual. 



I do not believe that there is a fair 

 minded agriculturist in this country 

 who can truthfully say that there ever 

 was a season during which he found 

 it entirely necessary to protect his 

 crops from weeds or insects, because 

 the birds had made such labor need- 

 less. 



