No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. 26/ 



now too rare with us to be of economic importance — Professor 

 Bruner writes : " The Snipes, Sandpipers, Plovers, Phalaropes, 

 Curlews, etc., are great destroyers of insedts. Moving, as many 

 of them do, in great flocks, and spreading out over the meadows, 

 pastures, and hillsides, as well as among the cultivated fields, 

 they do a large amount of careful police service in arresting the 

 culprits among insects. They even pry them out of burrows 

 and crevices in the earth, where these creatures lurk during day- 

 time only to come forth after nightfall to destroy vegetation. 

 The large flocks of Eskimo Curlews that formerly passed 

 through eastern Nebraska, did magnificent work during years 

 when the Rocky Mountain locust was with us, as did also the 

 equally large flocks of Golden Plovers. The Bartramian Sand- 

 piper even now is a great factor each summer in checking the 

 increasing locusts on our prairies." (Proceedings of the Nebraska 

 Ornithologists' Union at its Second Annual Meeting.) 



In " Our Vanishing Shore Birds," Mr. W. L. McAtee, of the 

 Biological Survey, says : " Few groups of birds more thoroughly 

 deserve protection from an economic standpoint. Shore Birds 

 perform an important service by their inroads upon mosquitoes, 

 some of which play so conspicuous a part in the dissemination 

 of diseases. Thus, nine species are known to feed upon mos- 

 quitoes, and hundreds of larvae or ' wigglers ' were found in 

 several stomachs. Fifty-three per cent of the food of twenty- 

 eight Northern Phalaropes in one locality consisted of mosquito 

 larvae. The insects eaten include the salt-marsh mosquito." 



" Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested by 

 mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horseflies. 

 Adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the stomachs 

 of the Dowitcher, the Pectoral Sandpiper, the Hudsonian God- 

 wit, and the Killdeer. Two species of shore birds, the Killdeer 

 and Upland Plover, still further befriend cattle by devouring the 

 North American fever tick." 



" Crane-fly larvae are frequently seriously destructive locally 

 in grass lands and wheat fields. Among their numerous bird 

 enemies shore birds rank high." 



Of grasshoppers shore birds are very fond, and twenty-four 

 species are known to feed on them. 



