RELATIONS OF BIRDS TO GARDENS 301 



in enormous flocks in grain fields, doing much damage. 

 But its injuries are partly atoned for by the fact that it eats 

 large numbers of injurious insects, many of them being 

 grain-destroying pests. 



In the Pacific coast region the Brewer Blackbird is 

 abundant. Its friends have to confess that it is fond of 

 cherries, but they also claim that it is a great destroyer 

 of insects. When Professor F. E. L. Beal was studying 

 these birds as they were eating fruit in a California cherry 

 orchard, a neighboring fruit grower began plowing. " Al- 

 most immediately every blackbird in the vicinity was upon 

 the newly opened ground, and many followed within a few 

 feet of the plowman's heels in their eagerness to get every 

 grub or other insect turned out by the plow." 



There is a great diEFerence of opinion about the economic 

 relations of the common crow — a bird that is abundant 

 over most of the United States. Many people accuse it, 

 and with justice, of pulling up sprouting corn, robbing 

 birds' nests, and carrying off young chickens as well as of 

 eating small wild animals — such as toads, frogs, and 

 snakes — which are beneficial to man. To counterbalance 

 these sins, however, it is certain that the crow destroys 

 large numbers of noxious insects. It also feeds freely 

 upon various wild berries and fruits, including the sumac, 

 dogwood, sour gum, and poison ivy. 



The chief injury to corn is done by the birds pulling up 

 the young plants or feeding upon the swollen kernels after 

 they become softened by the moisture of the soU. 



Flycatchers, Swifts, and Swallows 



A distinct phase of the war against insect pests is car- 

 ried on by Flycatchers such as the Phoebe and the King- 



