FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS. 



No. 20. 



Leaflet 



On Nature Study, 



Especially Adapted to the Use of Children in Schools 

 IN Rural Districts. 



PREPARED BY THE 



FACULTY OF PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 



OUR FRIENDS, THE BIRDS. 



By Miss Lillian Snyder. 



We sometimes forget that every animal, however insignificant it 

 may seem, as it lives its life, is either helping or hindering man in his 

 work. We are afraid of late springs and early frosts, of too much 

 rain or too much sun, but often forget that if all these conditions 

 are as we would have them, that other enemies axe endangering our 

 food supplies. I believe that the most harmful of these enemies are 

 the insects. Do you know that two hundred million dollars worth 

 of fruit and grain and other crops of various kinds are destroyed in 

 the United States each year by insects? The insects are in many 

 cases so small and conceal themselves so skillfully that we fail to know 

 they are present until the damage has been done and the crop ruined. 

 Then sometimes they come in such countless numbers that man is. 

 helpless and can only stand and watch the destruction of his year's 

 work. But if we do not interfere too much with nature's way of 

 working we will find that she has her own method of holding these 

 insect hosts in check. If you look about you closely you will find 

 that our native birds are, for the most part, busily at work protecting 

 our crops through feeding upon insects. Prof. E. E. Pish says that 

 the birds save for agricultural purposes because of their destruction of 

 insects, one hundred million dollars each year in the United States. 

 If this statement is true, and careful studies have shown that it is 

 tiaie, will it not be a wise thing to find what birds are our friends and 



