13 
It would be splendid nature study if all the children in our schools 
would learn this list of trees, shrubs, and plants. By learning them I 
do not mean being able to say over their names merely; but they 
should be able to recognize each at any season of the year; they should 
know its possibilities of growth for purposes of decoration and orna¬ 
ment ; and, most of all, they should study how to propagate each 
species, so that they can actually plant and have any species anywhere 
the}^ wish. 
Glancing down the first column of the chart we see that certain 
birds subsist on animal food, insects, worms, etc. These birds are the 
house wren and cuckoo; and,‘when it is determined, we may add to 
this list almost certainly the chickadee, vireos, swallows, swifts, mar¬ 
tins and flycatchers. We could not well have too many of these in our 
insect bepestered country. Another larger class of birds take 50% or 
over of animal food, but even with the others, as well stated by Wood 
(Theodore Wood, Our Bird Allies, p 7,)., birds that take but a small 
per cent, of insect food may still destroy insects which would have 
damaged fruits and crops much more than the birds themselves. Birds 
that come early, like the bluebird, robin, redwing, and grackle, may be 
of especial service by destroying insects before they have laid their 
eggs for the season.' A small per cent, of insects to a bird’s credit at 
this time may mean a great deal before the season is over. But, of 
course, insect destruction is only one of the reasons why we should 
protect our birds, and there are many others. 
For two years now the food chart has occupied a place on the wall 
of my study. I have had occasion to refer to it many hundred times, 
and never without learning something that I was glad to know. 
Still its best service, after all, lies in showing us how little we know 
about the foods of our birds. Each blank square is really a question, 
a suggestion to try this or that, and an infinite number of other things 
not mentioned in the chart, to see whether any particular bird will 
have taken much more than the wormy cherries. The charge is often made 
that they pick holes in the ripest, finest cherries; but may not these be just 
the ones that have grubs in them ? Last year the way the robins behaved was 
most interesting and suggestive. They literally stormed the trees by dozens 
before the cherries were fairly ripe, just as the first premature, wormy cherries 
were turning red; but after this, for three weeks, while the fruit hung rich and 
black, I did not see a robin in the trees, and the cherries were remarkably free 
from worms. 
