74 



BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. 



This weed is troublesome at Marshall Hall; it chokes the crops on 

 truck lands, gains a foothold in pastures, making milk bitter and 

 unsalable, and is so pestiferous in hayfields that it has to be removed 

 by a gleaner. Fortunately, however, it is palatable to seed-eating 

 birds, and it probably furnishes them a larger proportion of their food 

 than any other plant on the farm, a fact which doubtless prevents 

 much greater trouble and loss. Another harmful weed is broom- 

 sedge. It is ruinous to mowing and pasture, and spreads so readily 

 that if undisturbed it would in time take possession of all the fields 

 (PI. XIV, fig. 2). Juncos, field sparrows, tree sparrows, and probably 



Fig. 28— Field sparrow. 



other species check it to some extent. As has been said before, field 

 sparrows and tree sparrows are usually to be found associated with it. 

 In the higher part of the hog lot a flock of field sparrows (fig. 28) dur- 

 ing the middle of November, 1899 and 1900, spent most of their time 

 swaying on broom- sedge stalks, from which they were busily extract- 

 ing seeds. Sometimes a bird alighting on a plant would bend it to 

 the ground and hold it down with its feet while picking out the seeds; 

 seldom would one feed from the ground in any other manner. At the 

 same time a flock of about 30 field and tree sparrows along Persimmon 

 Branch behind the truck plot of lot 3 were also feeding on broom-sedge. 



