UTILITY OF BIRDS IN FIELD AND GARDEN. 21b 



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 exjioses 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 



