22 BIRDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA 



HOW BIRDS WORK FOR US 



To entice the birds about our homes and into our gardens 

 by bird houses, baths and food boxes is not only to make them 

 our friends but our servants. But for the birds there is no doubt 

 that our vegetables, bushes and trees would be destroyed by in- 

 sects. Most of our birds are insect eaters, and even seed-eating 

 birds feed their young upon insects. All birds are hot-blooded 

 creatures and require an enormous amount of food; and, too, 

 they seem to be feeding from morning till night. In winter in- 

 sects are in very condensed form, usually in the pupa stage, and 

 it requires a great many to satisfy a hungry bird, so that every 

 bird that searches our tree trunks in winter destroys what would 

 be a vast multiplication of insects during the following summer. 



The hosts of insects that the birds destroy in migration 

 are beyond all computation, indeed beyond our imagining. 

 Whole families of insect eaters, as they pass northward, appear 

 in each locality just before or at blossom time — Flycatchers, 

 Warblers, Vireos, Kinglets, Swallows and Swifts. They come 

 just as most insects are emerging from the pupa state and just 

 as others are hatching from the egg. Everywhere the trees are 

 alive with hurrying, hungry, feeding birds. Their quick eyes 

 search every leaf and examine every bud and blossom. They 

 are the savers of our trees and bushes. 



The larger birds that remain with us all summer, such as 

 Bluebirds, Orioles, Thrushes, Thrashers, Catbirds, and scores of 

 others, live largely on caterpillars. The favorite food of Cuckoos 

 is the tent caterpillar, which is so destructive to orchards; and 

 a few pairs of Grosbeaks in a potato patch will keep it free from 

 the destructive potato bug. The little Wrens will creep under 

 every vegetable in the garden looking for worms. Kingbirds 

 use the clothesline as a perch and gobble up the passing flies, 

 which carry disease from filthy places to infect our food. They 

 also destroy robber flies, which kill and eat honey bees. 



Every place in nature has its bird, and few are the birds 

 which do not give good account of themselves in rendering 

 service for the benefit of man. Even the Hawks and Owls, 

 which most boys and hunters regard as legitimate prey, and shoot 

 to let lie and rot, are among our most useful birds. There are 



