BY THE WAYSIDE 
32 
ti rely on locusts. In such localities 
fair crops were secured solely through 
the assistance of the birds. 
The members of the United States 
Entomological Commission who wit¬ 
nessed the work accomplished by the 
birds in this region, said the results 
were so complete that it was impossible 
to entertain any doubt as to the value 
of birds as locust destroyers. 
At the same time Prof. Samuel 
Aughev, of the University of Nebraska. 
made a careful study of the bird life in 
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the different localities where this out¬ 
break of locusts occurred. lie discovered 
that thrushes, kinglets, chickadees, nut¬ 
hatches, warblers, vireos, swallows, 
crows, blue jays, blackbirds, kingfishers, 
woodpeckers, hawks, owls, grouse, ducks, 
gulls, and even humming-birds were all 
doing their best to check the advanc¬ 
ing horde of locusts. Some people 
think that humming-birds live only on 
the sweet food they obtain from flow¬ 
ers, but this is not true. Four small lo¬ 
custs were found in the stomach of one 
humming-bird. Forty-seven were taken 
from the stomach of a yellow-headed 
blackbird. Six robins had eaten two 
hundred and sixty-five locusts. Sixty- 
seven of these insects were found in the 
stomachs of three bluebirds. One little 
ruby-crowned kinglet had eaten twenty- 
nine. Many of these and other birds 
were feeding their young on locusts. 
One barn owl had eaten thirty-nine. 
Even two white pelicans had varied 
tlieir diet of crayfish and frogs by pick¬ 
ing up a hundred and eight of these 
hoppers. So it would be difficult to ob 
tain more striking evidence skewing the 
commercial value of wild birds as the 
farmer’s extra hands. 
The Gulls Were Too Much for the Black 
Crickets 
When the Mormons first settled in 
Utah, black crickets came in myriads 
from the mountains and would have de¬ 
stroyed the crops had it not been for 
the gulls that came by hundreds and 
thousands from the surrounding lakes. 
At that time the settlers at Salt L*a7w> 
regarded the advent of birds as a heav¬ 
en-sent miracle, and ever since the gull 
has been esteemed almost as a sacred 
bird by the Mormons. About the beet 
and alfalfa fields when they are being 
irrigated, the gulls still collect and feed 
largely on field mice that are so destruc¬ 
tive' to crops. 
East year complaints were sent in to 
the Department, of Agriculture at Wash¬ 
ington stating that field mice were caus¬ 
ing great destruction in the alfalfa 
fields in the TIumboldt Valley in Ne¬ 
vada. Men from the Biological Survey 
were sent to investigate. In places the 
crops were entirely ruined. The mice 
ate the stalks and leaves and then de¬ 
voured the roots. A careful estimate 
showed that on some of tire '.ranches 
from ten to twelve thousand mice were 
getting their living out of an acre of 
alfalfa. With this multitude to feed, 
the farmers had little or nothing left 
for themselves. The abnormal increase 
of mice was purely an overbalance in 
nature. The farmers had no extra 
hands to keep the mice in check. The 
wild birds and animals that feed on 
mice had not been protected or they 
would have held the mice in check. But 
as soon as the mice increased to such an 
enormous numbers, birds began to col¬ 
lect and feed on them. By aiding these 
natural enemies of the mice and by us- 
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ing poisons, Ihe number of mice was 
reduced. » 
