UTILITY OF BIRDS IN FIELD AND GARDEN. 279 



down the near-by land. Most land is full of weed seed, 

 which retains its vitality for from five to seven years, so that 

 weeds always spring up at once and spread rapidly in lands 

 that are uncared for. The life of the gardener is a perpetual 

 warfare against weeds. In this fight many birds of the field 

 maj'^ be of some assistance against the weeds which annually 

 spring up, flourish, and die, and therefore are dependent on 

 seed alone to perpetuate their species. A goodly number of 

 the birds of the field feed largely on the seeds of such weeds, 

 and many of them subsist almost entirely on weed seeds 

 during the fall, winter, and early spring. The quantity of 

 such seeds annually eaten by birds in Massachusetts is be- 

 yond computation. Where seed-eating birds are numerous, 

 they get nearly all the seeds of certain weeds ; and if the 

 farmer takes pains to attract and protect them, they may be 

 of great assistance to him in the problem of weed destruc- 

 tion. Their benefits are greatest among hoed crops, for in 

 such fields the largest number of weeds find opportunity for 

 growth. 



Dr. Judd says that the principal weeds which birds prevent 

 from seeding are ragweed, pigeon grass, smartweed, bind- 

 weed, crab grass, lamb's quarters, and pigweed ; but these 

 are only a few of the seeds eaten by birds, as will be seen 

 later. During cold weather many of the birds about the 

 farm gorge themselves with the seeds of weeds, filling stom- 

 ach and gullet almost to the throat. Some species feed 

 in weedy gardens and fields ; others are found more along 

 the roadsides and the edges of thickets or woodlands ; while 

 still others, like the Snowflake and the Meadow Lark, seek 

 open fields by preference. As a single Snowflake can eat 

 a thousand seeds of pigweed at a meal, the eflfect produced 

 upon a wfeedy field by a flock of one hundred or two hundred 

 birds is very marked. They alight among the weeds, and as 

 fast as each bird exhausts its part of the supply it rises and 

 flies over the flock to the untouched weeds beyond ; and so 

 the flock rolls along, until perchance the birds have stripped 

 the seed from practically all the exposed weeds in the field. 



The various species of birds have different feeding habits. 

 Goldfinches, Pine Finches, and Crossbills, for instance, cling 



