FOOD BENEFICIAL IN EFFECT OX AGRICULTURE. 
25 
But although sparrows render considerable service by helping to 
reduce the number of insect pests, by far their most important work 
consists of the wholesale destruction of the seeds of weeds (see fig. 13). 
Each fall and winter they flock in myriads to agricultural districts 
and live on the ripened seeds of weeds. As they attack weeds in 
their most critical stage, that of the seed period, it follows that their 
services must be of enormous practical value. The benefits are 
greatest in the case of hoed crops, since among these are found the 
largest number of annual weeds, which, 
being killed by frost, must depend for per- 
petuation solely upon seeds. The principal 
weed seeds prevented by sparrows from 
germinating are those of ragweed, pigeon- 
gram, smartweed. purslane, bindweed, crab- 
grass, laml/s-quarters, chickweed. and ama- 
ranth (see fig. 14). It is sometimes asserted 
that no thrifty farmer will allow these nox- 
ious species to ripen seed, but such preven- 
tion is practically impossible, because even 
if all the edges of fields and all waste 
ground could be cleared, weed patches 
along ditches, roads, and hedgerows would 
still remain to disseminate seed to culti- 
vated land. It is in just these places that 
sparrows congregate in greatest numbers. 
Some eat more or less weed seed through- 
out the year, even when insects are most 
abundant: but their work is chiefly from 
early autumn until late spring, and is per- 
haps most noticeable in winter when the 
ground is white with snow. It is then that 
the weed patches are all a-twitter with the 
busy seed-eaters. The birds form ani- 
mated groups perched on the stalks or 
darting about on the ground beneath, wind- 
ing their way in and out among the weeds. 
So bountiful is the supply, and so eagerly 
do they avail themselves of it, that the 
number of seeds consumed by each individual seems beyond the 
eapaeity of its little body. It is not at all uncommon for a field 
sparrow to eat 1CK) seeds of crab-grass at a single meal. In the stom- 
ach of a NuttalTs sparrow have been found 300 seeds of amaranth, 
and in another 300 seeds of lamb's-quarters: a tree sparrow that was 
examined had consumed 700 seeds of pigeon-grass at a meal, while a 
snownake taken at Beaverdam. Wis., which had been breakfasting 
in a garden in March, had picked up 1,500 seeds of amaranth. 
Fig. U.— Weed seeds commonly 
eaten by sparrows: a, bindweed; 
6, lamb*s-quarters: c. purslane: 
rf, amaranth: e, spotted spurge: 
/, ragweed: g, pigeon-grass: h. 
dandelion. 
