July 8, 1899. J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
27 
Australia. In theory, at least, it admirably counteracts 
the effects of venom peptone, but it does not appear to 
neutralize in any way the venom globulin, The propor- 
tions of these venom's vary in different snakes. All our 
venomous snakes, except the elaps or coral snake, belong 
to the pit viper family, and they all seem to have a much 
larger proportion of venom globulin than any other 
venomous snakes. For instance, our rattlesnake has tAven- 
ty-five per cent, of it, while the India coj^ra carries ninety- 
seven per cent of venom peptone and only three per cent, 
of venom globulin. And here in Central America, where 
this happens to be written, I have many rcliabli' accounts 
of a snake called by the natives the blood snake, whoae 
venom is so strong in globulin that the mucous membrane 
of a person bitten will exude blood everywhere, gums, 
nose, bladder, etc., and sometimes even a bloody sweat 
will come through the ordinary skin. In one case told me 
by the physician who attended it, and successfully, a slight 
accidental cut on a iinger bled continuously for twenty- 
four hours. I have sent samples of this snake to the 
National Museum in Washington, to be identified, and 
when identification is received I will transmit his name. 
So, in all this hemisphere, the man who would be 
equipped to treat a snake bite promptly should have a 
hypodermic needle, and both strychnine and chromic acid. 
And if the popular idea of the Keely cure is well founded, 
chloride of gold might be added to the assortment. For 
the opportunity might occur, not to kill, but to cure two 
birds with one shot. 
In this connection it sTloyld be suggested to our surgical 
mstrument manufacturers to get up a compact pocket 
case containing a needle and the necessary drugs both in 
tablet and liquid; and a mechanical cupping or sucking 
arrangement would be a very desirable addition, Such a 
case is already said to be made by William Hume. Lothian 
street, Edinburgh, price los. 6d. ; and one without the 
mechanical sucker for 6 francs, by Pelliot & Dulon. Kue 
de Siecle,, Paris. J ack Hilpico. 
Birds as Weed Destroyers. 
BV SYLVESTER D. JUDD, PH. D., ASSISTANT IN BlOLOtiiCAl. 
SUHVEV. 
From the Yearbook of llie Department of Agriuuliiire. 
The problem of weed destruction is pereimial in every 
land where agriculture is practiced. Indeed, so serious is 
,t that soil culture may be said to be an everlasting war 
igamst weeds. For a thorough understanding of the 
wctd problem, it is necessary not only to define a weed, 
md to study its relations to crops, but to ascertain what 
u-e the agents, natural or artificial, which act as weed 
lestroyers. 
A weed is a plant out of place. Certain plants seem to 
ha\e formed a habit of constantly getting out of place 
md installing themselves in cultivated ground. Whether 
ictually among crops or in adjacent waste land, from 
which they can spread to cultivated soil, they are always 
ri metiace.' In the garden they occupy the room allotted 
10 useful plants and appropriate their light, water and 
food, so that any check on these noxious planlis, a million 
■)i which can spring up on a single acre, will not only 
lessen nature's chance of populating the soil with these 
worse than useles species, but will enable the farmer to 
ittain greater success with cultivated crops. The hoe and 
the cultivator will do much to eradicate them, but some 
will always succeed in ripening a multitude of seeds to 
sprout the following season. Certain garden weeds pro- 
duce an incredible number of seeds. A single plant of 
one of these species may mature as many as a hundred 
thousand seeds in a season, and if unchtcked woitld pro- 
duce in the .spring of the third year ten billion plant.s. 
Fortunately certain agents arc at work to check this 
harvest, and perhaps the most efficient among tfiem are 
seed-eating birds. Each fall and winter they flock in 
myriads to agricultural districts and live upoii the ripened 
'?eed of weeds. Since they attack weeds in the most 
critical stage of life, the seed period, it follows that their 
services must be of enormotis practical value. The benefits 
are greatest in ih6 case of hoed crOps* since here are 
found the largest number of annual weeds, which, of 
;?,ourse, are killed by frost atid must depend for perpe1;ua- 
4on solely upon seeds. The principal weeds which birds 
prevent from seeding are ragweed, pigeon grass, smart- 
weed, bindweed, crab grass, lamb's-quarters and pigweed. 
It is sometimes asserted that no thrifty farmer will allow 
these noxious species to ripen seed, but such prevention 
is practically impossible, because even if all the edges of 
lelds and all waste ground could be cleared, weed patches 
ilong ditches, roads and hedgerows would still remain 
;o disseminate seed to cultivated land. It is in just these 
jlaces that birds congregate in greatest numbers. 
Some birds eat more or less weed seed throughout the 
year even when insects are most abundant. But their 
jood work practically extends from early autnnm tmtil 
iate spring, and is perhaps most noticeable in winter when 
the ground is white with snow. During cold weather 
most of the birds about the farm feed cxtensi\'ely upon 
;ced, and gorge themselves until their stomachs and gul- 
cts become completely distended. It is not at all uncom- 
mon for a crow blackbird to eat from thirty to fifty seeds 
j\ smartwood or bindweed, or a field .sparrow 100 seeds of 
:rab grass, at a single meal. In the stomach of a Nuttall's 
^parrow were found 300 seeds of amaranth, and in another 
500 seeds of lamb's-quarters; a tree sparrow had con- 
sumed 700 seeds of pigeon grass, while a snowflake from 
3hr,ewsbury. Mass., W'hich had been breakfasting in a 
garden in February, had picked up 1,000 seeds of pig- 
weed. The birds most activelj' engaged in consuming 
weed ^ced are sparrows and finches, including more than 
a score of species.* horned larks, blackbirds, cowbirds. 
neado\v larks •doves and quaiL 
Sparrows- are the most abundant and widely distributed 
if the smaller birds inhabiting the rural districts of the 
United States. Their intimate association with agricul- 
tural iutf^icsts lia.s si!ggt'5ted the importance of a carejul 
(jjqu)ry as to their food habits, and such an investigatioii 
Oased on field observations and an exarnuiation of the 
;onLent5 of stomachs in the laboratory is now being made 
by file Biological Survey. Sparrows have been collected 
* These species inchide the tree, .songr. field; cliiiiping, gi'ass- 
hooper, fox, Nuttall's, golden-crowned, wliite-crowned, and white- 
iliroated sparrows, juncos, snowflaWe?, gfoldfincha^ -pine siskin, 
eeijpolls, towliees and grosbeatca. 
in practically all the States, the District of Columbia and 
Canada, and some 4,000 stomachs have already been ex- 
amined. The resuhs show that during the colder half of 
the year the food of these birds consists almost entirely 
of the seeds of weeds. 
SparroAvs generally seem to be rega.fded with favor, 
btit the English sparrow drives away native birds and does 
so much damage to grain and fruit that it is considered a 
pest. The native sparrows might also be suspected of in- 
jurying crops; btit though they frequently sample grain 
in stubble fields they have not, as yet, been found guilty 
of committing seriotts depredations. In order to com- 
pare the grain-eating propensities of the various species, 
specimens were collected in a field a few miles .south of 
Washington, D. C, before and after the wheat was cut. 
Of nineteen native birds, representing song, field, chip- 
ping and grasshopper sparrows, only two had eaten grain, 
and" these had taken only one kernel each, while every one 
of the five English sparrows was gorged with wheat. But 
with all his faults, the English sparrow does some good by 
assisting in the work of weed-seed destruction. Flocks 
of thousands of these birds may be seen every autumn on 
the lawns of the Department of Agriculture, feeding on 
crab grass and yard grass, two weeds Avhjch crowd out 
good tiirf-makin'g grasses. The Ertglish sparrow also de- 
serves credit for destroying seed of the dandelion, which 
is a prolific weed throughout the United States, especial- 
ly in laAvn.s, cemeteries and pastures. 
In .1894 English sparrows were observed by the wfiter 
destroying dandelion seeds in Cambridge, Mass., and 
during the last three years in the public parks of Wash- 
ington, D. C. In the latter city the birds eat these seeds 
from the middle of March until the middle of August, but 
chielly in April and the lirst half of May, when the lawns 
are literally yellow with floAvers. After the yellow petal- 
like corollas have disappeared the flower presents- an 
elongated, green, egg-shaped body with a dovmy tuft at 
llie upper end, and in this stage it is niost frequentlj' at- 
tacked by the Engli.sh .sparrow. The bird removes several 
long scales of the inner involucre by a clean cut close to 
the receptacle or base of the head, thus exposing the 
plumed seeds, or akenes. He seizes a mouthful of these 
akenes and then lops off the plumes with his bill and swal- 
lows the seeds. In matvy cases, especially when hungry, 
hf does not take the trouble to remove the plumes. 
Generally a score of seeds are droppd in tearing open a 
head, and usually a few are left clinging to the edge of 
the receptacle. The mutilation caused by the birds' beaks 
can fie detected until the flower stalk dries and falls. 
In order to determine how^ much damage was done to 
dandelions on the lawns of the Department of Agricul- 
ture, every flower stalk was picked from a rectangular 
space 6ft. 2in. long by 3ft. 3in. wide. This was on 
April 29. i8g8. Of the 413 stalks collected, 358 showed 
unmistakable marks of the sparrow's bill. On the next 
day 293 stalks were gathered from a circle 2ft. in diameter 
on the other side of the lawn, and 275, or 93 per cent., 
proved to be mutilated. These and simil.nr ob.servations 
seem to show that at least three- fourths of the dandelions 
which bloom in April and May on the Department lawns 
arc mutilated by hi i ds. 
In the destruction of dandelion seeds, the English spar-"^ 
row is aided by several native birds, chiefly the song 
sparrow, chipping sparrow, white-throated sparrow and 
goldfinch. So far as observed the native birds usttally do 
not cut open dandelions, but feed upon those left by the 
English sparrow. The song sparrow, however, is capable 
of getting out seeds alone, for one which was kept in 
captivity manipulated dandelions in precisely the same 
way as the English sparrow. The song sparrow and the 
chipping sparrow make a practice of feeding from the 
short-stemmed heads that have already been opened, but 
even here the chipping sparrow has difficulty in iiulling 
out the seds, and often simply picks up those which have 
been dropped. Goldfinches frequently pursue an entirely 
different course, although they also pick seeds from the 
green involucres torn open by English sparrows. On 
May 3, 1898, a dozen goldfinches were observed for a 
couple of hours on the Department lawns. First they 
hopped along the ground; then one bird flew to a dande- 
lion stalk 6in. high, alighted crosswise, and moving toward 
the downy ball until it bent the whole stem to the ground, 
ate seed after seed. 
Besides the lawn Aveeds already mentioned, such as 
dandelions, crab grass, atid yard grass, several others, in- 
cluding pigeon grass, knotweed, sedge, oxalis and chick- 
weed, furnish food for birds. These plants are also 
troublesome in other places besides lawns. Knotweed 
litters up paths and roads in spots where turf is broken. 
, chickweed occurs in plowed ground, and pigeon grass, 
which is considered one of the worst weeds in Minnesota, 
is found among many crops. The seeds of these plants 
are eaten by the song sparrow, chipping sparrow, field 
sparrow^, jtmco. English sparrow% tree sparrow, Gambel's 
sparrow and white-throated and white-crowned sparroAvs. 
Among the weeds which are troublesome in fields, 
especially among hoed crops, ma}' be mentioned ragweed, 
several species of the genus Polygonum, including bind- 
weed, smartweed and knotweed, pigweed, nut grass and 
other sedges, crab grass, pigeon grass, lamb's-quarters and 
chickweed. Every one of these weeds is an annual, not 
living over the winter, and their seeds constitute fully 
three-fourths of the food of a score of native sparroAVS 
during the colder half of the year. Prof. F. E. L. Beal, 
who has carefully studied this subject in the Upper Missis- 
sippi Vallejr, has estimated the amount of weed seed eaten 
by the tree sparrow, junca and other sparrows that swarm 
down from Canada in the fall and feed in the rank groAvth 
of weedes bordering roadsides and cultivated fields. He 
examined the stomachs of many tree sparroAvs and found 
them entirely filled with weed seed, and conclnded that 
each bird consumed at least a quarter of an ounce daily. 
Upon this basis, after making a, fair alloAvance of the 
nttml'ier of birds to the sqixare mile, he calculated that in 
the State of foAva alone the tree sparrow annually destroys 
about j,7SO,ooolbs., or about 875 tons, of weed sred dur 
ing Its winter sojourn, 
Besides tree sparrows and juncos, the most rmportant 
gregarious sparroAvs that destroy weed^ in the iXlississippi 
Valley and on the Gre,it Plains are the fox sparroAv, snow^- 
flake, the Avhite-crowned sparrow, Harris' sparrow and 
longspurs. Further south are found lark finches, while 
on the Pacific slope occur Nuftall's sparrow, the golden- 
crowned. sparroAv ant' wnscnd's sparrow. East of the 
Alleghanies the most active weed eaters are tlae tree 
sparrow, fox sparrow, junco, white-throated sparrow, 
song .sparrow, field sparrow and chipping sparroAV. 
On a farm in Maryland, just outside the District o£ 
Columbia, tree sparrows, fox sparrows, white throats, 
song sparrows and juncos fairly swarmed during Decem- 
ber in the liriers of the ditches between the cornfields. 
They came into the open fields to feed upon weed seed, 
and worked hardest where the smartweed formed a tangle 
on low ground. Later in the season the place was care- 
fully examined. In one cornfield near a ditch the smart- 
weed formed a thicket over 3ft. high, and the ground be- 
neath was literally black Avith seeds. Examination showed 
that these seeds had been cracked open and the meat re- 
moved. In a rectangular space of 18 sq. in. were found 
1,130 half seeds and only two whole seeds. Even as late 
as May 13 the bii'ds w'ero still feeding rni the seeds of 
these and other weeds in the fields; in fact, out of a collec- 
tion of sixteen sparrows, twelve, mainly song, chipping 
and field sparroAvs, had been eating old weed seed. A 
search was made for seeds of various weeds; but so thor- 
oughly had the work been done that only half a dozen 
seeds could be ioimd. The birds had taken practically all 
the seed that was not covered; in fact, the song .sparrow 
;ind several others scratch up much buried seed, 
Most of the song sparrows, practically all the field, chip- 
ping, vesper and grasshopper sparrows, dickcissels, lark 
finches' and Harris' sparrows of the central portion of the 
United States spend the winter m the South, while their 
places are taken in the North by snowflakes, juncos, clay- 
colorcd longspurs. fox sparroAvs and white-throated and 
white-crowned sparrows. All these birds have much the 
same food habits, but they differ in the quantity and kind 
of .seed which they eat. Thus, the tree sparrows, or "Avin- 
ter chippies," snowflakes and long.spurs feed largely upon 
seed.s of grasses, especialljr those of pigeon grass, crab 
grass and allied species, Avhile the Avhite-throated spar- 
row in the Eastern States, Nuttall's sparrow in the Pacific 
Coast region, and the white-crowned sparroAV so abundant 
in the central part of the United States, are particularly 
fond of .amaranth and lamb's-quarters. In January the 
vvhilethroat depends upon ragweed and various species of 
Polygomim, .such as bindweed, knotweed and smartweed, 
for mort; tlian half of its food; the white-crowned and 
fox sparrows take nearly as much as the whitethroat, while 
juncos destroy a still greater amount of ragweed. 
The chippy and song sparrow are perhaps the best 
knOAvn of all the native sparrows of the United States. 
When not living in hedgerows or bushes about buildings 
the song sparrow inhabits the shrubberj'^ along Avater 
courses. It seeks its food on the ground, generaUy among 
bushes or weeds, and has a peculiar mouse-like way of 
running through the grass. Seeds of weeds, especially 
smartAveed, bindAveed and other species of the genus 
Polygonum, pigeon grass, pigAveed. lamb's-quarters and 
ragAveed, and also some crab grass, form four-fifths of 
the food of this species during the colder half of the year. 
Ninety-five out of a hundred of the birds collected during 
March and April had eaten Aveed seed, and many stomachs 
contained from 50 to 200 seeds each. 
The chipping isparroAV is a familiar little bird, readily 
recognized by its reddish cap, cicada-like note, and habit 
of lining its nest with horsehair. It eats the seeds of such 
troublesome grasses as pigeon grass, crab grass and closely 
allied species, and during September and October these 
and other weed seeds make up three-fourths of its food. 
The field sparroAV is closely related to the chipping spar- 
roAV, but may be distinguished by its reddish bill. It is 
thoroughly commonplace in appearance, and in habits i.s 
much shyer than the chipping sparroAv, which is often 
called a dooryard bird. Field sparrows are very abundant 
about the farm, and their food consists of practicalb^ the 
same seeds as those eaten by its relative. 
The grasshopper sparrow, so called from its dry, mo- 
notonous note, is even more a bird of the fields than the 
field .sparrow. It is one of the fcAV species that eats the 
seeds of rib grass. The dickcissel of the Central States, 
Avhich also has an insect-like note, is larger than the grass- 
hopper sparroAV, and its plumage is conspicuously marked 
with bright yelloAv, black and gray, someAvhat like that of a 
meadow lark. The lark finch is also a large .sparrow of 
striking appearartce. Its head is striped with black, and 
from this fact it is knoAvn in certain sections as "snake 
bird." It is particularly fond of the seeds of leguminous 
plants. The vesper sparrow, celebrated for its tAvilight 
chanting, is as much a bird of the open grassy fields as 
the lark finch or dickcissel. When disturbed 'it flits up 
from the ground, spreading its Avhite-.splashed tail, and 
ahghts but a short distance away to resume its work. 
HowcA'Cr varied in dress or habit, all the native sparroAvs 
are alike in subsisting largely upon seeds of noxious 
j)lants. 
The goldfinch, or wild canary, is as useful as it is 
beautiful, and as a weed destroyer has few equals. It 
confines its attention very largely to one family of plants, 
the compositai, and is especially fond of thistles, wild 
lettuce, wild sunflower and ragweed. It is so often seen 
on thistles, both Canada and buUl thistles, that it is 
commonly known as the thistle bird. Near Washington 
a flock of a dozen birds was seen during the latter part 
of August feeding on snnfloAvers that had escaped from 
cultivation, and in the Central and Western States the 
goldfinches do much good by eating the seeds of wild 
sunflowers and other closely related weeds. They have 
also been seen feeding upon wild lettuce, and probably 
eat prickly lettuce, which has proved the most rapidly 
spreading Aveed ever introduced into this country, but 
as yet no actual observations as to the latter food habit 
have been made. Stomachs collected in August were 
filled with the seeds of compositos, mostly sunflowers 
and thistles. 
At Burlington, la,, during July and August Mr. Paul 
Bartsch found goldfinches feeding exclusively upon the 
bull thistle. He was able to approach Avithin a few feet 
of several birds Avhile thus engaged, and noticed that the 
seeds or akenes were bitten off and swallowed, while the 
plumes or pappus floated a\vay. When there was no 
vvfnd the pappus often failed to fly away and clung to 
the birds, almost burying them with doAvn^ A dozen of 
the birds were killed and their gizzards and gullets 
were found literally crammed with thistle seeds. At 
Sing Sing, N. Y., goldfinches have been seen eating 
the seeds of the Scotch thistle and boneset Cone flow- 
ers, prairie sunflowers, evening primroses, catnip, ele- 
