624 
the time in grass and weeds are com- 
monly overlooked. Unobtrusive as they 
are, they lay the farmer under a heavy 
debt of gratitude by their food habits, 
since their chosen fare consists largely 
of the seeds of weeds. Selecting a typi- 
cal member of the group, the tree spar- 
row, for instance, one-fourth ounce of 
weed seed per day is a conservative esti- 
mate of the food of an adult. On this 
basis, in a large agricultural state like 
Iowa tree sparrows annually eat approx- 
imately 875 tons of weed seeds. Only the 
farmer, upon whose shoulders falls the 
heavy burden of freeing his land of noxi- 
ous weeds, can realize what this vast con- 
sumption of weed seeds means in the 
saving and cost of labor. Some idea of 
the money value of this group of birds to 
the country may be gained from the state- 
ment that the total value of the farm 
products in the United States in 1910 
reached the amazing sum of $8,926,000,- 
000. If we estimate that the total con- 
sumption of weed seed by the combined 
members of the sparrow family resulted 
in a saving of only one per cent of the 
crops—not a violent assumption—the sum 
saved to farmers by these birds in 1910 
was $89,260,000. 
The current idea in relation to hawks 
and owls is erroneous. These birds are 
generally classed as thieves and robbers, 
whereas a large majority of them are the 
farmer’s friends and spend the greater part 
of their long lives in pursuit of injurious 
insects and rodents. The hawks work 
by day, the owls chiefly by night, so that 
the useful activities of the two classes 
are continued practically throughout the 
24 hours. As many as 100 grasshoppers 
have been found in the stomach of a 
Swainson’s hawk, representing a single 
meal; and in the retreat of a pair of barn 
owls have been found more than 3,000 
skulls, 97 per cent of which were of mam- 
mals, the bulk consisting of field mice, 
house mice and common rats. Nearly half 
a bushel of the remains of pocket goph- 
ers—animals which are very destructive 
in certain parts of the United States— 
was found near a nest of this species. The 
notable increase of noxious rodents during 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
the last few years in certain parts of the 
United States and the consequent dam- 
age to crops are due in no small part to 
the diminished number of birds of prey, 
which formerly destroyed them and aided 
in keeping down their numbers A few 
hawks are injurious, and the bulk of the 
depredations on birds and _ chickens 
chargeable against hawks is committed 
by three species—-the cooper’s hawk, 
the sharp-shinned hawk, and the gos- 
hawk. The farmer’s boy should learn 
to know these daring robbers by sight, 
so as to kill them whenever possible. 
From the foregoing it will at once ap- 
pear that the practice of offering boun- 
ties indiscriminately for the heads of 
hawks and owls, as has been done by 
some States, is a serious mistake, the 
result being not only a waste of public 
funds but the destruction of valuable 
birds which can be replaced, if at all, 
only after the lapse of years. 
As a rule birds do not live very long, 
but they live fast. They breathe rapid- 
ly and have a higher temperature and a 
more rapid circulation than other verte- 
brates. This is a fortunate circum- 
stance, since to generate the requisite 
force to sustain their active bodies a 
large quantity of food is necessary, and 
as a matter of fact birds have to devote 
most of their waking hours to obtaining 
insects, seeds, berries, and other kinds of 
food. The activity of birds in the pur- 
suit of insects is still further stimulated 
by the fact that the young of most 
species, even those which are by no 
means strictly insectivorous, require 
great quantities of animal food in the 
early weeks of existence, so that during 
the summer months—the flood time of in- 
sect life—birds are compelled to redouble 
their attacks on our insect foes to satisfy 
the wants of their clamorous young. 
Field observations of the food habits 
of birds serve a useful purpose, but they 
are rarely accurate enough to be fully 
reliable. The presence of certain birds 
in a corn or wheat field or in an orchard 
is by no means proof, as is too often as- 
sumed, that they are devastating the 
grain or fruit. They may have been at- 
