154 OUR DEBT TO THE SWALLOWS 



their services in destroying vast numbers of 

 noxious insects, ask only for harborage and 

 protection. It is to the fact that they cap- 

 ture their prey on the wing that their pe- 

 cuUar value to the cotton grower is due. 

 Orioles do royal service in catching weevils 

 on the bolls ; and blackbirds, wrens, flycatch- 

 ers, and others contribute to the good work ; 

 but when swallows are migrating over the 

 cotton • fields, they find the weevils flying in 

 the open and wage active war against them. 

 As many as forty-seven adult weevils have 

 been found in the stomach of a single cliff 

 swallow." 



We, of this country, are not alone in rec- 

 ognizing the valuable service of swallows. 

 An Italian journal states that no less than 

 five hundred insects make up the daily por- 

 tion of one swallow, a total of about four, 

 thousand in one week ; and that one swallow 

 can save in a day thirty-two hundred seeds 

 of grain and one thousand bunches of grapes. 



In addition to destroying insect pests, 



