8 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 
habits. With the evidence all in, it is usually possible for the farmer 
to properly estimate the status of any given species with reference 
to his own farm and his own interests and to adopt measures 
accordingly. 
It can not be too thoroughly insisted that sound public policy 
everywhere forbids the destruction of birds on a large scale for the 
purpose of protecting orchard fruits. Wholesale slaughter of birds 
in the supposed interest of the orchardist is fortunately rare and 
often proceeds from a mistaken idea of their economic relations. 
When it is understood that the damage by a certain species is local 
and exceptional, that the birds in question are on the whole bene- 
ficial and that their destruction will be a loss to the State, the 
farmer and the orchardist are usually willing to adopt less drastic 
measures in defense of their crops and to spare the birds for the 
sake of the general weal. 
STATUS OF BIRDS IN NEWLY SETTLED REGIONS. 
When a new country is settled, large areas are plowed and brought 
under cultivation. In the process great numbers of native shrubs, 
weeds, and grasses are destroyed, and various new and exotic plants 
and trees are substituted. Coincident with this change in the vege- 
table life, and as a necessary consequence of it, great changes in the 
conditions and distribution of animal life take place. Some species 
are restricted in distribution and greatly reduced in numbers, or even 
exterminated, while others become more abundant and more widely 
dispersed. The reduction in numbers may occur from actual killing 
by man, from the destruction of natural breeding sites through 
clearing, and from a diminution of food traceable to the same cause. 
The results are exactly the opposite when cultivation and planting 
afford a more abundant supply of food, greater facilities for breed- 
ing, and better protection from enemies. The natural result of such 
conditions is a marked increase in number of the favored species, 
and this increase probably explains the great devastation of crops 
by birds that occurred on the Atlantic seaboard soon after the first 
settlements, and then successively in the States to the westward as 
these were gradually settled. 
The early days of agriculture in California offer an interesting case 
in point. When the native grasses and weeds of the fertile valleys 
were destroyed to make room for grain, many species of birds, 
notably blackbirds and quails, were suddenly deprived of their natural 
subsistence and in place of it were supplied with an abundance of 
new and nutritious food. Naturally they preferred the cultivated 
grains (wheat, barley, and oats) to the wild oats (.Lvena fatua) upon 
which they had largely depended. Still later, when many of the 
