370 Bird -Lore 



SUGGESTIONS 



1. In what region do you live, boreal, austral, or tropical? 



2. What is your idea of a life-zone? 



3. Where are the coldest parts of the United States? The hottest? The temperate? 



4. Will wheat and other cereal crops grow anywhere? What kind of soil do they 

 need? 



5. What determines their distribution? How much frost, rainfall, and drought will 

 they survive? 



6. Does wheat grow where you live? Do you know how much wheat your state 

 produces annually? How much of other cereal crops? 



7. Do you know how many bushels of these various crops are raised to the acre in 

 your state? Does the amount vary from year to year? Is it possible to increase the 

 amount raised on an acre? How? 



8. Where are the largest wheat-belts of the world? Where is the largest amount of 

 wheat to the acre raised? 



9. Is it possible for the United States to raise all the wheat needed at home as well 

 as what is demanded for export to other nations? Should we try to raise as much as 

 possible or just what is needed? What is a surplus? Do you know how large a surplus 

 of wheat our Government hopes to have this year? Will it want more yet in 1919? Why? 



10. What birds injure cereal crops? What birds protect them? 



11. Can you name all the countries and states as well as the water highways over 

 which the Golden Plover flies in its annual migration? Where is it not well protected? 



12. Why would it pay to protect this as well as all other Plovers and shore-birds 

 generally? Are there Plovers in the eastern hemisphere? Golden Plover? Do they ever 

 meet our Golden Plover? If so, where do you think it might be? Does anyone know 

 why the Golden Plover goes so far north to nest and so far south to winter? 



13. What do you know about the insects upon which it feeds? Does it have any 

 other kind of food? Can you tell the difference between different kinds of grasshoppers 

 and locusts? Have you any idea how many kinds there are in the United States alone? 



14. Compare the habits of the Bobolink in the North and in the South, also in the 

 spring, summer, fall, and winter. When and where should it be always protected? 



In 1865, 1869, and 1886, locusts appeared in devastating numbers in Nebraska, at 

 places so many as to darken the sun. Without the aid of such birds as the Yellow- 

 headed Blackbird, Plover, Quail, Curlew and Prairie Chicken, cereal crops would have 

 been lost. A farmer in Fremont, Neb., wrote, "In answer to your question about the 

 birds and the locusts, I must say this: 'Every farmer that shoots birds must be a fool.' 

 I had wheat this spring on new breaking. The grasshoppers came out apparently as 

 thick as the wheat itself, and indeed much thicker. I gave up that field for lost. Just 

 then great numbers of Plovers came, and flocks of Blackbirds and some Quail, and com- 

 menced feeding on this field. They cleaned out the locusts so well that I had at least 

 three-fourths of a crop, and I know that without the birds, I would not have had any. 

 I know other farmers whose wheat was saved in the same way." 



From Fall River, Mass., comes this surprising record of the beneficial work of the 

 Spotted Sandpiper in a garden and orchard about 1,500 feet from the shore: "Three 

 pairs nested in a young orchard behind my house and adjacent to my garden. I did not 

 see them once go to the shore for food, but I did see them many times make faithful 

 search of my garden for cutworms, spotted squash bugs, and green flies. Cutworms and 

 cabbage worms were their especial prey. After the young could fly, they still kept at 

 work in my garden and showed no inclination to go to the shore until about August 15. 

 They and a flock of Quail just over the wall helped me wonderfully." — A. H. W. 



