170 
YEARBOOK OE THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
.the farmer. Valuable at all times and at all places favored by their 
presence, swallows have a peculiar value to the southern cotton 
planter, for they prey upon the cotton boll weevil as it flies over the 
fields on its errand of destruction. The more that swallows can be 
induced to nest in the cotton States, and the more they can be in¬ 
creased in the North, so as to add to the number that migrate through 
the South, the better will it be for the cotton planter, and incidentally 
for the whole country. Especially important is it that swallows be 
protected from the assaults of the English sparrow, which covets 
their nesting sites. Not only do these pests drive away swallows from 
their nests, but they even throw out their eggs and kill the helpless 
young. 
VEGETARIAN BIRDS AND THEIR FOOD HABITS. 
It is not possible strictly to divide small birds by their diet into 
vegetarian and insectivorous kinds, for while many birds live largely 
upon vegetable substances—some almost exclusively—there are very 
few that do not, at least occasionally, eat insects (all of them feed 
their young upon insects) ; and, it may be added, there are not many 
insect-eating birds that do not, at least occasionally, vary their diet 
by berries or other vegetable substances. Pigeons perhaps are more 
exclusively vegetarian than other birds, the common turtle dove, for 
instance, apparently never eating insects except when they happen to 
be contained in seeds or other vegetable food in the form of eggs or 
larvae. For present purposes, however, those birds may be considered 
vegetarian which live chiefly and most of the year upon vegetable 
food. 
It is among this group naturally that we look for enemies of the 
farmer, for cultivated grains and fruits are often so much more ac¬ 
cessible than the wild varieties that it would be strange indeed if 
birds had not discovered their good qualities and promptly availed 
themselves of their opportunities. 
Crows. —Crows are as widely as they are unfavorably known for 
their depredations on corn, especially when it is just sprouting, and 
their record is further blackened by their appetite for the eggs and 
nestlings of all small birds and of game birds. Bad as crows are, 
they yet have redeeming traits, for they devour great numbers of in¬ 
sects, especially grasshoppers and cutworms, and they kill also many 
meadow mice and other small rodents. The economic status of the 
crow is, of all birds, one of the most difficult to determine, but the 
balance is undoubtedly in the bird’s favor. The offering of bounties 
to insure the destruction of crows is mistaken policy, for, as stated 
above, the crow performs important services fo agriculture, and his 
extermination would be a loss to the country. 
