256 FIELD ZOOLOGY. 



injurious insects and burrowing rodents, and in eating 

 the seeds of harmful plants, or devouring refuse which, if 

 left, would be a menace to the health of the community. 

 Many of the birds which are known to be seed-eaters are 

 not, for this reason, to be set down as harmful birds. 

 The seeds eaten may be seeds of troublesome or harmful 

 plants. A great many of the birds that stay north during 

 the winter, or come south at that time, devour large 

 quantities of weed seeds — a fact not to be disregarded 

 in the economy of our seed-planting, plowing, and 

 harvesting. 



Among our specially useful birds are the woodpeckers, 

 both downy and hairy, yellow-billed and black-billed 

 cuckoos, bluebirds, robins, brown thrashers, catbirds, 

 grosbeaks, red-winged blackbirds, sparrow hawks, quails, 

 prairie chickens', marsh hawks, red-tailed hawks, barn 

 owls, swifts and swallows, the large family of sparrows, 

 the warblers, and the vireos. Others might be mentioned 

 as valuable to man, but these whose names are here given 

 do such great service as to deserve special mention. The 

 service rendered is simply obeying the instincts of food- 

 getting and of caring for their young; but by a wise pro- 

 vision of the Creator, the two necessities named lie heav- 

 iest upon these birds during our season of crop-growing 

 and harvesting. Moreover, in order to do themselves 

 this good and us this service, most of these birds just 

 named journey on their tiny wings a thousand miles — ■ 

 some of them much more, some less — going far south when 

 our summer is over, and coming back when our spring 

 returns. And yet many people see no more in this than 

 a casual happening, something to be taken for granted, 

 instead of a great lesson of the Creator, taught anew every 

 spring in the flutter of hundreds of wings and the melody 



