Alabama, igi8. 15 



In the agricultural regions of the upper Mississippi valley by 

 roadsides, on borders of cultivated fields, or in abandoned fields, 

 wherever they can obtain a foothold, masses of rank weeds spring 

 up and often form almost impenetrable thickets which afford food 

 and shelter for immense numbers of birds and enable them to with- 

 stand great cold. A person visiting one of these weed patches on a 

 sunny morning in January, when the thermometer is 20 degrees or 

 more below zero, will be struck with the life and animation of the 

 busy little inhabitants. Instead of sitting forlorn and half frozen, 

 they may be seen flitting from branch to branch, twittering and flut- 

 tering, and showing every evidence of enjoyment and perfect com- 

 fort. If one of them is captured it will be found in excellent con- 

 dition; in fact, a veritable ball of fat. 



The snowbird and tree sparrow are perhaps the most numerous 

 of all the winter sparrows. Examination of many stomachs shows 

 that in winter the tree sparrow feeds entirely upon seeds of weeds. 

 Probably each bird consumes about one-fourth of an ounce a day. 



The writer of the new bulletin has estimated the amount of weed 

 seed annually destroyed by these birds in Iowa. On the basis of 

 one-fourth of an ounce of seed eaten daily by each bird, and an 

 average of ten birds to each square mile, remaining in their winter 

 range of 200 days, there would be a total of 1,750,000 pounds, or 

 875 tons of weed seed consumed in a single season by this one 

 species. Large as are these figures, they unquestionably fall far 

 short of the reality. 



The estimate of ten birds to a square mile is very conservative, 

 for in Massachusetts, where the food supply is less than in the 

 western states, the tree sparrow is even more abundant than this in 

 winter. 



In Iowa several thousand tree sparrows have been seen within 

 the space of a few acres. This estimate, moreover, is for a single 

 species, while, as a matter of fact, there are at least a half a dozen 

 birds (not all sparrows) that habitually feed during winter on these 

 seeds. 



Farther South the tree sparrow is replaced in winter by the 

 white-throated sparrow, the white-crowned sparrow, the fox-spar- 

 row, the song sparrow, the field sparrow, and several others ; so that 

 all over the land a vast number of these seed eaters are at work 

 during the colder months, reducing next year's crop of worse than 

 useless plants. — Department of Agriculture. 



