306 



BRANCH CHORDATA 



Where man has not interfered, nature has a well-balanced 

 arrangement for the protection of his crops. The grasses and 

 low-growing herbs are protected from such enemies as the cut- 

 worm, caterpillar, and grasshopper by the chipping sparrow, 

 robin, and bluebird, and, farther afield, by the quail, meadow- 

 lark, blackbird, and field sparrow. In the edge of the woods are 



Fig. 2.51. — Bluebird at edge of nest with grasshopper in mouth. (From 

 photograph by R("v. P. B. Peabody.) (Bulletin 17, Biological Survey, 

 U. S. Dept. of .\grii-ulture.) 



the chewinks and brown thrashers; and in the deep woods, the 

 ruffed grouse; while along the fresh-water streams andpontls may 

 be seen the woodcocks, sandpipers, and snipes. In the trees 

 "the woodpeckers, assisti^i by the nuthatches and creepers, 

 look after insects on and beneath the bark of both the trunk and 

 the branches."! The chickadees, bluebirds, thrushes, warblers, 



' Weed and Dearborn, " Birds in Theii Relation to Man.'' 



