THE BIRD STUDY BOOK 



hundred and ten in three minutes, forty-five sec- 

 onds; while still another Song Sparrow ate one 

 hundred and fifty-four in the same length of time. 

 This Sparrow had been eating for half an hour before 

 the count began and continued for some time after 

 it was finished." It is readily seen that thirty seeds 

 a minute was below the average of these birds; and 

 if each bird ate at that rate for but a single hour 

 each day it would destroy eighteen hundred seeds a 

 day, or twelve thousand six hundred a week. Some 

 day the economic ornithologists under the leader- 

 ship of Professor F. E. L. Beal, America's leading 

 authority on the subject, may give us a full and ex- 

 haustive account of what the various birds do for 

 us in the way of keeping down the great scourge of 

 grass and weeds with which the farmers have to deal. 

 In the meantime, however, we may bear in mind 

 that enough evidence already has been accumulated 

 to prove that as destroyers of noxious weed seeds 

 the wild birds are of vast importance. 

 Dealing with the Rodent Pests. — In addition to 

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