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 
may 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 nuinerous, 
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 effect produced 
upon a weedy 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 
