ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS TO THE STATE. 



25 



tickfoil, and berries of nightshade (Solanum sp.) are sometimes eaten, and pigeon 

 grass and smartweed are frequently consumed in large quantities. The amount of 

 grain found in the few stomachs thus far examined is surprisingly small, while the 

 proportion of weed seed is astonishingly large, in some cases crops and gizzards 

 being literally gorged with hundreds of seeds of ragweed." 



Quail also eat potato-beetles and grasshoppers, and in Texas their food in the 

 fall is said to consist " chiefly of various seeds and Mexican boll weevils, which are 

 so disastrous to the Texas cotton fields." * 



DOVES. Family Columbidae. 



Mourning Dove : Carolina Dove {Zenaidura macrourd). — " The Mourning Dove 

 is abundant throughout much of the United States, and is especially common in 

 stubble fields and waste places, grown up to weeds. It is pre-eminently a seed-eater, 

 and although at times turning its attention to grain, it nevertheless consumes an 

 enormous amount of weed seed. The crop of one Dove secured in a rye field in 

 Warner, Tenn., contained 7,500 seeds of Oralis stricta [Yellow Wood-sorrel]." 

 (Judd.) 



" In the stomach of one kind I counted 4,016 seeds of the pigeon grass and 12 

 small snails ; the latter were probably taken as gravel." (King.) 



HAWKS, FALCONS, ETC. Family Falconidas. 



It was because of the widespread misunderstanding of the food habits of our 

 Hawks and Owls, and because of their unusual economic value, that one of the first 

 acts of the Division of Economic Ornithology, now the Biologic Survey, of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture was to undertake a careful and elaborate 

 study of the food of Hawks and Owls in order that their status might rest on the 

 sound basis of observed facts. 



This work was intrusted to Dr. A. K. Fisher, Assistant Ornithologist of the 

 Survey, a naturalist of wide experience, who has won for himself a well-deserved 

 reputation as a most careful and conscientious investigator. 



After several years passed in accumulating material and in examining the 

 contents of the stomachs of nearly 2,700 Hawks and Owls, Dr. Fisher concluded a 

 volume of 200 pages in which are fully set forth the results of his studies. This 

 volume forms Bulletin No. 3 of the Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy, and 

 it is considered to be one of the most valuable contributions to economic zoology 



*Schutze. The Summer Birds of Central Texas, p. 2. 



