How the Birds Benefit 
Garden and Orchard 
THE SPLENDID ASSISTANCE RENDERED THE GARDENER 
THROUGH THE DESTRUCTION OE INSECT LIFE IN 
EVERY STAGE —HOW TO ENLIST THE BIRDS’ SER¬ 
VICES AND HOW TO AID THEM IN THEIR CRUSADE 
Photographs by the author 
o 
It is said that a robin will eat 
several times its own weight 
of worms each day 
VER ten years ago (1898) 
the United States Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture issued a 
bulletin of thirty-nine pages, en¬ 
titled, “Some Common Birds in 
Their Relation to Agriculture.” 
For horticulturists and garden¬ 
ers, such subjects as “The Hab¬ 
its of Birds,” “The Benefits of 
Birds,” “The Protection of Birds,” and “How to Attract Birds,” 
are now matters of serious study, for it is coming to be well un¬ 
derstood that birds help us in raising fruit and vegetables in 
ways that we are least able to help ourselves. Weeds can be 
fought with hoe and cultivator; but to fight insects that cut the 
roots of our vegetables just below the ground, feed upon their 
tender leaves, burrow under the bark of trees, weave their 
swarming nests in tiptop branches, or lay their eggs in fruit be¬ 
fore it is ripe—this fight requires the assistance of birds. And 
so constant is their help that only if we were without them for 
a few seasons, could we realize their effectiveness. 
It is well known that most insects pass through four stages 
of existence — the egg stage, the larval 
stage, the pupa stage, and the imago, 
or perfect insect stage. In all of 
these stages insects are food for birds. 
Warblers and vireos, which flit almost 
hummingbird-like about leaves and 
blossoms, destroy countless eggs: 
practically all birds that frequent 
orchard and garden, feed upon larvae 
(worms and caterpillars) ; chrysalids, 
pupae and larvae, are eagerly devour¬ 
ed the year round; and one family of 
birds is named “flycatchers” because 
they feed almost entirely upon ma¬ 
ture insects; and to this family should 
be added swallows and swifts, which 
feed in the same way. 
The point to which attention is 
here specifically directed is, that the 
birds are destroyers of insect enemies, 
not only during the active larval 
stage, when these enemies do most 
harm, but from the time insect eggs 
are laid, through larval state and pupa 
state and imago state; in a word, 
throughout the whole life history of 
the insect. 
Of course, if we were to go into 
the matter exhaustively, many ex¬ 
ceptions would have to be made to 
this statement, since some insect eggs 
are laid where birds cannot 
The bluejay will welcome a 
post in your garden, from 
which to spy out insects 
at 
Our good friend, “Downy,” at the door of his home, 
in an old tree trunk set up for the purpose 
them; some larvae mature where 
they are perfectly safe, for ex¬ 
ample, inside of “wormy apples”; 
while some pupae are buried in 
the ground. But insects in every 
stage of development, wherever 
accessible, are food for birds, and 
birds are always in search of them. 
It is interesting to note that 
every part of the tree in your orchard has its birds. Orioles and 
grosbeaks feed in its topmost branches; warblers, vireos and 
kinglets scan the surface of leaves on middle and lower limbs, 
and peer into every blossom; cuckoos love the shade, and feed 
upon the large caterpillars found on inner twigs; chickadees, 
nuthatches, creepers and woodpeckers examine every bark- 
crevice on trunk and limb. There is no part of a tree which has 
not its bird whose life habit it is to find insect food in that 
particular place. 
Robins, thrushes, thrashers, catbirds, bluejays and chewinks, 
we find feeding for the most part, upon the ground. They hop 
everywhere, the robins and thrushes preferably upon the open 
lawn or under trees; the catbirds, 
thrashers, and chewinks, whose habits 
are lhore seclusive, love best to work 
under bushes or among shrubbery, 
where the chewink may often be found 
scratching among the leaves like an 
old hen. 
Nor must we forget the helpfulness 
of our winter birds in ridding our 
orchards and gardens of insects. Win¬ 
ter birds are few, compared with the 
dozens of different kinds that we have 
in summer. But in the winter the 
places where insect food may be 
secured are also few. Larvae and 
pupae are to be found in bark crevices, 
under loose bits of bark, in decayed 
knots or in dead trees. In such places 
our winter birds keep up an incessant 
search for them. The chickadees 
search the smaller branches; creepers 
run up the trunks and larger branches, 
searching with their curved bills every 
crevice that opens upward; while the 
nuthatches search the same parts of 
the tree, running always downward 
and searching every crevice that opens 
downward. The woodpeckers also 
search trunk and large branches and 
have bills fitted for chiseling out borers 
that lie buried in the wood. 
During the cold months of the year 
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