VALUE OF BIRDS TU MAN. 67 
that the bird referred to is undoubtedly Franklin’s Gull 
(Larus franklinti), which occurs in enormous flocks about 
the small fresh-water lakes of the northwest, and feeds in 
great companies on Orthoptera of all sorts. The Gulls were 
practically canonized by the grateful Mormons, and protected 
by both law and public sentiment, as a recognition of their 
worth. 
Similar services were performed by birds during the great 
locust ravages which followed the settlement of the Missis- 
sippi valley. When large swarms of locusts appeared, nearly 
all birds, from the tiny Kinglet to the great Whooping Crane, 
fed on them. Fish-eating birds, like the Great Blue Heron, 
flesh-eating birds, like the Hawks and Owls, shore birds, 
Ducks, Geese, Gulls, —all joined with the smaller land birds 
in the general feast. Prof. Samuel Aughey learned this 
by dissecting birds and observing their feeding habits in 
Nebraska. In a paper published by him in 1877, but not 
often quoted, he gives some of the practical results of the 
work done by birds in protecting crops from the mighty 
swarms of locusts which were devastating most of that 
region. He says :— 
In the spring of 1865 the locusts hatched out in countless numbers in 
northeastern Nebraska. Very few fields of corn and the cereal grains 
escaped some damage. Some fields were entirely destroyed, while 
others were hurt to the amount of from ten to seventy-five per cent. 
One field of corn northwest of Dakota City was almost literally covered 
with locusts, and there the indications were that not a stalk would 
escape. After, and about the time the corn was up, the Yellow-headed 
Blackbirds in large numbers made this field their feeding ground. 
Visiting the field frequently, I could see a gradual diminution of the 
number of the locusts. Other birds, especially the Plovers, helped the 
Yellow-heads; and, although some of the corn had to be replanted once, 
yet it was the birds that made the crop that was raised possible at all. 
During the same season I visited Pigeon Creek valley, in this county, 
and I found among the eaten-up wheat fields one where the damage 
done was not over five per cent. The Irishman who pointed it out to me 
ascribed it to the work of the birds, chief among which were the Black- 
bird and Plover, with a few Quail and Prairie Chickens. 
Professor Aughey speaks of a locality where, on several 
old fields, locusts hatched to the number of about three hun- 
