The Birds Our Friends and Companions 199 



hunters to shoot woodpeckers just for sport, although no 

 one eats them nor are they known to do any harm. With 

 a decrease in their numbers there has been an increase in 

 insect pests which are now destroying so many trees in all 

 parts of our country. The woodpeckers in the Sierra 

 Nevada Mountains are worth almost their weight in gold, 

 for they destroy millions of beetles that are kiUing the great 

 sugar pines and yellow pines. Here and there you will 

 find a tree, attacked by the beetles, from which the wood- 

 peckers have almost stripped the bark in their search for 

 these insects. 



The food of the martins and swallows is wholly made up 

 of insects. We have all seen them in their graceful flight 

 and have noticed how they seize their insect prey while on 

 the wing. The martins are of little value for food, and 

 yet, in some parts of our country, they have become almost 

 extinct because of the pursuit of them by pot hunters. 



A barn swallow. 



Finlcy <x Boklman 



