BIRDS OF TOWN AND COUNTRY 



495 



tective laws similar to those recently 

 enacted in this country. 



BIRDS ARE THE FARMERS' MOST EFFICIENT 

 ALLIES 



While birds appeal to the regard and 

 interest of man from the esthetic side as 

 no other creatures do, there is another 

 and even more important point of view, 

 and it is no doubt true that of late years 

 interest in birds has been greatly stimu- 

 lated by the discovery that they possess 

 an economic value. Indeed, so great is 

 their value from a practical standpoint 

 as to lead to the belief that were it not 

 for birds successful agriculture would be 

 impossible. 



The study of the economic side of 

 bird life and of the relations of birds to 

 the farmer and horticulturist have been 

 greatly stimulated in the United States 

 by Federal aid and supervision, and in no 

 other country in the world have the ac- 

 tivities of birds been so carefully investi- 

 gated with reference to their practical 

 bearing. Under the Biological Survey 

 of the Department of Agriculture, for 

 instance, is a corps of trained men, who 

 study the food of birds by careful ex- 

 amination of the stomachs of specimens 

 killed for scientific purposes. The infor- 

 mation thus gained is supplemented by 

 observations in the field, and the result 

 is a large amount of invaluable data illus- 

 trative of the economic relations of many 

 kinds of birds. This storehouse of in- 

 formation has been largely drawn upon 

 in the following pages. 



OUR COUNTRY IS PARTICULARLY FORTU- 

 NATE IN THE NUMBER AND 

 VARIETY OF ITS BIRDS 



It would be strange indeed if our land, 

 with its vast extent of territory, its diver- 

 sified landscape, its extensive forests, its 

 numerous lakes and streams, with its 

 mountains, prairies, and plains, had not 

 been provided by Nature with an abun- 

 dant and diversified bird life. As a mat- 

 ter of fact, America has been favored 

 with a great variety of birds famed both 

 for beauty and for song. America also 

 possesses certain families, as the hum- 

 ming-birds and wood-warblers, the like 

 of which exist nowhere else in the world. 



In considering the many kinds of 



birds in the United States from the prac- 

 tical side, they may not inaptly be com- 

 pared to a poiice force, the chief duty of 

 which is to restrain within bounds the 

 hordes of insects that if unchecked would 

 devour every green thing. To accom- 

 plish this task successfully, the members 

 of the force must be variously equipped, 

 as we find they are. Indeed, while the 

 1,200 kinds of birds that inhabit the 

 United States can be grouped in families 

 which resemble each other in a general 

 way, yet among the members of the sev- 

 eral families are marked variations of 

 form and plumage and still greater vari- 

 ation of habits, which fit them for their 

 diversified duties. 



As the bulk of insects spend more or 

 less time on the ground, so we find that 

 more birds are fitted for terrestrial serv- 

 ice than for any other. Our largest bird 

 family, the sparrows, is chiefly terres- 

 trial, and although its members depend 

 much upon seeds for subsistence they 

 spend no little share of their time search- 

 ing for insects. They are ably aided in 

 the good work by the thrushes, wrens, 

 certain of the warblers, and many other 

 birds. 



Another group is of arboreal habits, 

 and plays an important part in the con- 

 servation of our forests, the true value 

 of which we have only recently learned 

 to appreciate. So many insects burrow 

 into trees that a highly specialized class 

 of birds — the woodpeckers — has been 

 developed to dig them out. The bills, 

 tongues, feet, and even the tails of these 

 birds have been cunningly adapted to this 

 one end, and the manner in which this 

 has been done shows how fertile Nature 

 is in equipping her servants to do her 

 bidding. 



The bark of trees also forms a favorite 

 shelter for numerous insects, and behold 

 the wrens, nuthatches, warblers, and 

 creepers, with sharpest of eyes and slen- 

 derest of bills, to detect our foes and to 

 dislodge them from crack and cranny. 



The air is full of flying insects, and to 

 take care of these there are the swallows, 

 swifts, and night-hawks, whose wings 

 and bodies are so shaped as to endow 

 them with the speed and agility neces- 

 sary to follow all the turns and windings 

 of their nimble insect prey. 



