16 Wyoming Bxperiment Station. 



"The food habits of both the Turkey Vulture and the Car- 

 rion Crow, or Black Vulture, are of such a nature that the 

 destruction of these birds should be prohibited. In fact, in 

 many of the states this is done by law. They live almost ex- 

 clusively upon carrion or decomposing animal matter, and in 

 this manner aid in the prevention of diseases that might re- 

 sult from the presence of such filth. They may, however, be 

 the cause of indirectly spreading hog cholera where animals 

 that have died from this disease are left unburied or unburned. 



"The Cuckoos are among the few birds that habitually, 

 feed upon hairy caterpillars, such as the various 'tent-making' 

 species. They also destroy large numbers of other caterpil- 

 lars, and do not object to beetles and other insects which they 

 find among the foliage of trees. Although shy birds they are 

 frequently seen in cities, where they do their share in protect- 

 ing the shade trees from the ravages of insect defoliators. 



"Taking the Woodpeckers as a family, there are few per- 

 sons but who will readily admit that these birds comprise a 

 very useful group. Feeding, in fact, as most of them do, upon 

 the larvae of. wood boring insects, they can readily do much 

 greater good for the actual number of insects destroyed than 

 if they destroyed only those that feed upon the foliage of trees. 

 Not unfrequently will a single borer kill an entire tree if left 

 to itself, while hundreds of foliage- feeding caterpillars of the 

 same size have but little effect upon the appearance, to say 

 nothing of the health, of the same tree. 



"Mr. F. E. L,. Beal, assistant in the Division of Ornitholo- 

 gy and Mammalogy of the United States Department of Ag- 

 riculture, in summing up the results obtained from the ex- 

 amination of 679 stomachs of these birds, writes as follows : 



" 'In reviewing the results of these investigations and 

 comparing one species with another, without losing sight of 

 the fact that comparative good is not necessarily positive good, 

 it appears that of seven species considered the Downy Wood- 

 pecker is the most beneficial.' He then goes on to give the 



