THE BIRD CENSUS AND FOOD CHART 325 



food but, even with the others, as well stated by Wood 

 (Theodore Wood, Our Bird Allies, p. 7), birds that take 

 but a small per cent of insect food may still destroy 

 insects which would have damaged fruits and crops much 

 more than the birds themselves. Birds that come early, 

 like the bluebird, robin, redwing, and grackle, may be of 

 especial service by destroying insects before they have 

 laid their eggs for the season. 



For four years now the food chart has occupied a place 

 on the wall of my study. I have had occasion to refer to 

 it many hundred times, and never without learning some- 

 thing that I was glad to know. Still its best service, 

 after all, lies in showing us how little we know about the 

 foods of our birds. Each blank square is really a ques- 

 tion, a suggestion to try this or that, and an infinite 

 number of other things not mentioned in the chart, to 

 see whether any particular bird will eat it. And when a 

 child finds that any bird will cat something which it is 

 not shown to eat in the chart, he may have discovered 

 a fact which no one else in the world knows. If it be 

 some destructive insect, his observation may be very 

 valuable, and if he tells everybody about it, he may lead 

 people to protect the bird more carefully and so help to 

 make the world better. 



As years go by and great numbers of our birds become 

 so tame that they will come to us and eat from our hands 

 and allow us to observe them as they hunt their natura] 

 foods and feed their young, we may be able to discover 

 more in this important field, in possibly the next ten years, 

 than man has learned in as many centuries. Methods 

 suggested for taming birds may assist in this work. 



