8 
The Colorado Experiment Station 
the young grub has sufficient food for its development. One of 
the most common of these is Priononyn atrctus. 
Birds. —Insectiverous birds play a most important part in 
natural control of grasshoppers. They are always present thru- 
out our agricultural districts, and are constantly feeding upon 
grasshoppers and other insects. The following are pointed out by 
W. R. Walton* as being the most important: 
“Franklin’s gull, bobwhite, prairie chickens, red-tailed, red-should¬ 
ered, broad-winged and sparrow hawks; the screech and burrowing owls, 
yeDow-billed cuckoo, road-runner, nighthawk, red-headed woodpecker, 
kingbird, horned lark, crow, magpie, red-winged and crow blackbirds, 
meadowlark, lark bunting, grasshopper and lark sparrows, butcherbird, 
wren and robin.” 
All domestic fowls will feed upon grasshoppers whenever 
possible. Turkeys and chickens will aid materially in controlling 
them. They are very effective over small areas, as they will eat 
a great quantity of young hoppers. However, their effectiveness 
must not be over-estimated, as it is almost impossible for any 
farmer to have a sufficient flock to patrol his entire field. The 
wandering habit of turkeys takes them thruout the infested areas 
where they are very beneficial in hopper control, but chickens are 
of a different nature, and their houses must be placed in the in¬ 
fested field and be moved at intervals, if they are to rid a given 
locality of this pest. Mr. Jones, of Monte Vista, placed a coop 
and about 60 chickens (Fig. 1) in his field and affected a com- 
Fig. 1.—Chickens in the field used as a method of control for grass¬ 
hoppers, 1916, San Luis Valley. They did very efficient work imme¬ 
diately around the portable coop, which was moved every other day 
(Original). 
*“Grasshopper Control in Relation to Cereal and Forage Crops,” Farmers 
Bulletin No. 747, U. S. D. A. (1916), p. 12. 
