UTILITY OF BIRDS IN FIELD AND GARDEN. 275 
CHAPTER VII. 
THE UTILITY OF BIRDS IN FIELD AND GARDEN. 
In the grass field or meadow, as in the wood lot, natural 
conditions are simulated. Each year until haying time the 
grass offers cover and shelter for the nests of such birds 
as breed on the ground in natural meadows, savannas, or 
prairies. The grass and other plants of the field also pro- 
vide food for birds, and for insects on which birds feed. As 
in woodlands, there is established a natural interdependence 
between the bird and its food and shelter, — the insects and 
the grass. 
The habits of birds that live in fields have become ad- 
justed to those of the native insects which also live there, 
so that the abundance of these insects is largely controlled 
by these birds, while the abundance of the birds is regulated 
chiefly by the rise and fall of the insects on which they feed. 
Some of the most useful birds of the farm live and breed in 
the fields; others breed along walls and fences, Early cut- 
ting of the grass on fields and meadows reduces the num- 
ber of birds that breed there, for it destroys their nests or 
takes away the shelter of the grass from their young; but 
it also checks the grass insects, and exposes them to attacks 
from Robins, Crows, and other birds that nest in woodland 
or orchard, but prefer to feed in the field. 
When, for any reason, the numbers of birds in the field 
are insufficient, insects increase; but in such cases the field 
birds are assisted in their work by birds of shore, swamp, 
orchard, and woodland. A similar service is often recipro- 
cated to orchard or woodland by the birds of the fields, 
many of which flock to the trees to quell outbreaks of cat- 
erpillars or other tree pests. 
Grasshoppers, army worms, cutworms, and the grubs of 
May beetles are among the most destructive insect enemies 
of the grasses of this State. , Nearly all field birds feed upon 
