OUR LARGEST STANDING ARMY: THE BIRDS . 
33 1 
makes the pests its principal food. 
Four sage cocks had eaten 190 
grasshoppers, while the sharp-tailed 
grouse, prairie hen, and quail ate 
enormous numbers of them. 
Passing now to the “shore birds” 
the records of the golden plover, the 
American snipe, the various sand- 
pipers, godwits, tattlers, and cur- 
lews all tell the same story of locust 
destruction. Even the great blue 
heron, American bittern, and sand 
hill crane devoured the pests, while 
the rails and American coot added 
their efforts to subdue them. The 
snow goose, the Canada goose, and 
the various ducks — including the 
mallard, dusky duck, pintail, and 
blue-winged teal — contained quanti- 
ties of ’hoppers. Two out of five 
white pelicans examined had varied 
their diet of crayfish and frogs by 
picking up locusts — one containing 
41 and the other 67 specimens. 
The gulls, including the black- 
backed, herring, ring-billed and 
Franklin’s rosy gull, had eaten 
many grasshoppers, as had also the 
least and black tern. 
It certainly would be difficult to 
obtain more striking evidence than 
this concerning the utility of birds 
in checking outbreaks of injurious 
insects. The fact that birds of all 
sorts and sizes, from the giant peli- 
can to the tiny humming bird — birds 
of the prairie, the forest, the air, the 
shore, the sea, and the inland lake — 
fed to .so large an extent upon the 
locusts proves beyond doubt that 
these feathered allies were using 
to its fullest extent a tremendous 
force to check the ranks of the in- 
vaders. 
The birds have well been likened 
to a great standing army which can 
be concentrated at short notice up- 
on any locality where an enemy 
appears. These records certainly 
show that the army is one that 
can be depended upon for active 
service in time of need. 
