RELATION TO AGBICULTURE 33 



saving tie farmer from a direct money loss. 



As a matter of fact the agriculturalist is more 

 indebted to birds for the preservation of his 

 growing crops than to any other living creatures. 

 In the predatory insects he finds true helpmates 

 who destroy much of the smaller fry; but the 

 rapacious caterpillars, cicadas, and grasshoppers 

 are too large for them to attack. Parasites deal 

 with these forms, but their action is slow and 

 affects the immediate crop Uttle. 



Virtually all birds will gobble a large insect 

 upon sight. Entire colonies of tent-caterpillars 

 are destroyed before they can denude a tree of 

 its foliage. Broods of "seventeen-year locusts" 

 (cicadas) are suppressed by English sparrows, 

 which seem to have a strange fondness for those 

 queer insects. Chickadees, kinglets, and nut- 

 hatches rid our orchards of countless myriads of 

 plant-lice and their eggs. One chickadee alone 

 will consume 5000 eggs of the canker-worm moth 

 in a day. A single covey of quail can clear an 

 acre of potato-vines of their beetles. 



A few years ago the United States Department 

 of Agriculture set aside a tract of land in Mary- 

 land with the view of determining the exact sta- 

 tus of birds on a farm. It was necessary, in 

 order to get at their stomach contents, to shoot 

 a great number of individuals. In all, 645 birds 

 were killed during the experiment. The results 

 proved interesting. Virtually all the birds, at one 



