498 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



to let the shooting privileges on the property for a sum equal 

 at least to the amount of the taxes; and the lessees, while pay- 

 ing for the shooting privileges, will see to it that the supply of 

 game is kept up. 



A succession of game birds rearing their young in the woods 

 and fields is a perennial delight to the eye, and the good they 

 do in destroying pests far exceeds any injury that they ordi- 

 narily cause to the crops. 



The Woodcock, Snipe and Upland Plover are commonly 

 included among game birds, but they are no better food than 

 some other closely related species among the shore birds. The 

 Sandpipers, Snipe and Plover all may be reckoned among the 

 useful species. Most of those known to feed about marshes 

 and pools probably destroy the young or larvae of mosquitoes. 

 Mr. W. L. McAtee, in a recent bulletin entitled Our Vanishing 

 Shorebirds, published by the Bureau of Biological Survey, 

 lists the Northern Phalarope, Wilson's Phalarope, the Stilt, 

 Pectoral, Baird's, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, the 

 Killdeer and the Semipalmated Plover among the birds now 

 known to eat mosquitoes. Fifty-three per cent, of the food 

 of twenty-eight Northern Phalaropes consisted of mosquito 

 larvae. The salt-marsh mosquito {Mdes sollidtans) is eaten 

 commonly by shore birds. The State of New Jersey, where, 

 as elsewhere, gunning has decreased the numbers of shore birds, 

 recently has gone to great expense for the suppression of the 

 salt-marsh mosquito. 



The following passages from Mr. McAtee's paper will 

 give some idea of the value of the shore birds as insect eaters : — 



"Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested 

 by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horse- 

 flies. Adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the 

 stomachs of the dowitcher, the pectoral sandpiper, the Hud- 

 sonian godwit and the killdeer. Two species of shorebirds, 

 the killdeer and upland plover, still further befriend cattle 

 by devouring the North American fever tick. 



"Among other fly larvae consumed are those of the crane 

 flies (leatherjackets) devoured by the following species : north- 

 ern phalarope {Lobipes lobatus) ; Wilson phalarope (Steganopus 



