USEFUL BIRDS 
39 
THE BLUE HERON. 
Another of our wading 1)irds, wrongly referred to frequently 
as “Crane.” The cranes, he it said, are rather birds of the plains 
and prairies — not of wooded sections, wliere we hnd these hsher- 
men abundantly re])resented. Its food consists of frogs and hsh, 
but grasshoppers and held mice are not scorned. Like the king- 
hsher, it may become destructive when frequenting the ponds of 
the hsh-breeder. 
BAD BIRDS. 
Under this head, we would unhesitatingly place the Shark- 
shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk and Goshawk, the chief marauders 
against poultry and small birds; the Yellow-bellied Wood-pecker, 
or “Sap-sucker,” which feeds upon the sap of trees, leaving row^s 
of holes about the trunk, and the English Sparrow, or more cor- 
rectly speaking, the European House Sparrow. 
The Sap-sucker (the only bad woodpecker we have) preys upon 
l)irch, maple, apples, mountain ash, evergreens, and other trees. 
Some of the cambium or inner layer of bark is eaten also. While 
this bird eats a few insects, the damage it does in causing trees to 
bleed, far outweighs the benehts derived from its presence. 
