12 BIRDS 



warblers, woodcock, grouse, plovers, and the yellow- 

 winged woodpeckers or flickers, which feed on ants (whose 

 chief oflFense is that they protect aphides or plant lice to 

 "milk" them) — these, and many other birds contribute to 

 our national wealth more than the wisest statistician could 

 estimate. Many old farmers will wish at least the crow 

 or the blackbird removed from this white list, but scientific 

 experts have proved that the workman is worthy of his 

 hire — ^that the birds which destroy enormous numbers of 

 white grubs, army worms, cutworms, and grasshoppers in 

 the fields are as much entitled to a share of the corn as the 

 horse that plows it or the ox that treads it out. The evil 

 results following a disturbance of nature's nice balances 

 rest on no scientific theories but on historic facts. Pro- 

 tective bird laws, which very quickly increase the insect 

 police force, add many million dollars annually to the per- 

 manent wealth not only of such enlightened states as have 

 adopted them, but to the country at large, for birds, like 

 the rain, minister to the just and the imjust. And the 

 rising generation of farmers is the first to be taught this 

 simple economic fact! 



Weed Destroyers 



Weeds have been defined as plants out of place, and 

 agriculture as an everlasting war against them. What 

 natural allies has the pestered farmer? 



Happily, the sparrows and finches, among the most 

 widely distributed, prolific, and hardy of birds, are his con- 

 stant co-workers, some members of their large clan being 

 with him wherever he may live every day in the year. 

 Nearly all, it is true, vary their diet with insects, but 

 surely they are no less welcome on that account! 



