346 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



One estimate of the number shipped from Dakota County for the year 1874 made the 

 number 7,000, and another 10,000 ; but wherever I have prosecuted my inquiries in 

 30 counties of the State the testimony was unanimous that the number of prairie-chick- 

 ens and quail that were trapped and shipped was simply enormous. And for these 30 

 counties the average for each county, counting in those that were consumed at home, 

 must have been at least 10,000 prairie-chickens and 5,000 quail. This is a very low 

 estimate, but it is best in these calculations to under rather than to over estimate 

 numbers. 



Now, it is well to look at the enormous number of insects that these two species of 

 birds might have destroyed had they been permitted to live, 



Numler destroyed in each of thirty counties. 



Prairie-chickens. Quail. 



10, COO 5,000 

 30 30 



Destroyed in 30 counties 300,000 150,000 



150 150 



Insects destroyed in one day, at 150 insects to each 



chicken and quail 45,000,000 22,500,000 



30 30 



Insects destroyed in one month 1, 350, 000, 000 675, 000, 000 



6 6 



Insects destroyed in six months 8, 100, 000, 000 4, 050, 000, 000 



4, 050, 000, 000 



Total number of insects destroyed in six months 12, 150, 000, 000 

 It should be observed here that the counties embraced in the above calculation cover 

 only the eastern one-third of the State ; and I submit whether, if this calculation were 

 extended into the remainder of the State, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, it would not 

 account for a large portion of the insect-ravages that interfered with the prosperity of 

 those regions. This calculation should be compared with that made on a previous page 

 concerning the good work of other insectivorous birds, in order to understand the 

 damage done by destroying the natural enemies of insects. 



Many of the devotees of bird shooting maintain that such an increase of birds as is 

 contemplated in order to so limit the development of insect-life as to preserve all forms 

 of vegetation from their ravages, would in the end be destructive to our crops. There 

 would not, they claim, be sufiQcient insects to feed them, and in their absence they 

 would necessarily attack our grain and corn fields. In reference to this it may be 

 observed that it is doubtful whether there are any well authenticated cases where 

 birds have to any extent been injurious to wheat or corn fields, with the exception of 

 the crows. The blackbirds that were condemned for opening ears of corn were really 

 after the grubs that were destroying it. The prairie-chickens and quails that are 

 captured in wheat-stubbles and corn-fields are found to have more insects than grains 

 in their stomachs. The only exception to this rule that has come under my observa- 

 tion has been where sometimes prairie-chickens and quail have been shot on wheat 

 and straw stacks, and in corn-fields in winter. But the grain that is lost in straw at 

 threshing-time would be lost at any rate, and the quantity that can be stolen from 

 the outside of a stack in winter is small at best ; and the number of farmers who 

 postpone husking their corn till winter or spring is becoming smaller each year. 

 The greater part of the thrashing throughout the west is also now done in the fall. 

 Generally our granivorous birds only take what is left after the agriculturists have 

 gathered what they could. What the birds take would have been lost at any rate. 



There is still another beneficent work that these birds that are partly granivorous 

 in winter accomplish for agriculture, a work for which they have never received 



