Jan. II, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
43 
for some species are too few in numbers to 
cause any great harm — it is obvious that the 
meadow lark must play a very important part 
in keeping down the number of injurious insects 
in the region under consideration. 
Every study of bird food like this one — 
and others by Professor Beale — is of very great 
value. We are likely to have more of them. 
News of the Fur Seals. 
Through the co-operation of Great Britain, 
Japan, Russia and the United States, the practice 
of pelagic sealing was abolished in 1911. Ihe 
past summer was, therefore, the first breeding 
season under the new law, the first time for 
thirty years or more when the fur seal herd 
was free from the drain upon its breeding stock, 
when the mother seals were not killed at sea 
just before or just after the birth of the young. 
It seemed important that during this first 
season the number of seals upon the islands 
should be determined, as nearly as possible, and 
a census was therefore taken. This has been 
done many times before, in a variety of rough 
ways which have given very different results. 
In 1869 Capt. Charles Bryant, the first agent 
in charge of the fur seal herd, estimated that 
there were three and a quarter millions breed¬ 
ing seals and young. Several years later Henry 
W. Elliott figured that there were 3,193000 
breeding seals and young, and of non-breeding 
seals a million and a half more. Again in 1890 
on a greatly reduced herd, Elliott estimated the 
breeding seals and young at less than a million. 
In 1895, Drs. True and Townsend found 156,000 
seals of all kinds, while another enumerator in 
the same year believed there were 405,000 breed¬ 
ing seals and young. All these estimates were 
made on the theory that at about the time when 
the pups were born, all the cow seals would be 
on land. In i8g6, however, it was discovered 
that a full count of the pups on the island 
showed that they outnumbered the cows two to 
one; all figures had to be revised, and then the 
estimate for 1896 was 450,000. 
The census for 1912, which was carried on 
by George Archibald Clark, of the Bureau of 
Fisheries, shows that there are more than 215,000 
animals of all classes on the islands of St. Paul 
and St. George. 
Mr. Clark believes that the herd has not 
changed much since 1909; that the annual de¬ 
struction by pelagic sealers just about equalled 
the annual increase; in other words, the herd 
has been standing still. With the protection 
of the females, the increase each year should 
be about 10 per cent. 
It is estimated that by the abolition of 
pelagic sealing, 15 000 additional breeding females 
reached the rookeries of the Pribilof Islands and 
brought forth their young, making an estimated 
difference of .30,000 animals at the close of the 
year. 
The mortality on the Pribilof Islands was 
studied during the breeding season of 1912. As 
will be remembered, this was investigated dur¬ 
ing the years 1896 and 1897 by the seal com¬ 
mission. At that time there was a very heavy 
loss among the pups from starvation, the mother 
seals being killed while fishing at sea. The 
hook worm disease was also a cause of death. 
Mr. Marsh, of the Bureau of Fisheries, reports 
a total loss on St. Paul Island of 880, which 
is at the rate of 12.5 per thousand. The death 
rate from starvation is but little more than 4 
per cent., and from the hook worm disease for 
the whole season considerably less than one per 
thousand. On the other hand a large number 
of pups die from suffocation at birth. 
All this has to do with the losses among 
the pups. The adults die from fighting and vari¬ 
ous accidents. As time goes on and the number 
and age of the bachelor seals increases under 
the present law, the loss from fighting and other 
accidents on the rookeries will, no doubt, in¬ 
crease. 
The establishment of a close season on bull 
seals for a period of five years is likely to have 
a deplorable effect on the subsidiary life of the 
islands. Commercially the Arctic blue fox is 
the most important form of this life. These 
foxes are scattered all over the island, and in 
past years have depended for their winter food 
on the frozen carcasses of the seals killed dur¬ 
ing the season for their skins. During the past 
forty years, 40,000 pelts of blue foxes have been 
taken, and the foxes, by proper feeding, may be 
indefinitely increased in number. Animal for 
animal, the fox is as important commercially 
as the fur seal. In other words, in London a 
fox skin brings the same price as a seal skin. 
The lack of food during the coming winter is 
likely to greatly reduce—by starvation—the fox 
population, and starvation for five years is likely 
to wipe it out entirely. 'Phe matter is one which 
calls for serious consideration by legislators, 
and Congress should repeal the provision of the 
law which forbids the killing of superfluous bull 
seals. G. B. G. 
Food of Some Common Birds. 
A Bulletin lately issued by the Department 
of Agriculture deals with the food of some well- 
known birds. These are found in six or eight 
families and nearly 5,000 stomachs of these birds 
have been examined so as to determine, with 
certainty, the food on which they subsist, and 
to learn whether they are useful or not. 
The three-toed woodpeckers—birds found in 
the Middle States only in the dead of winter—• 
subsist chiefly on animal food, about 90 per cent, 
of the food of these species being insects. Among 
these are the wood-boring larvae of beetles which 
do a vast amount of damage to our forests. 
Rough estimates of the food of these birds led 
Dr. Beal to conclude that a single bird in one 
year will destroy between 13,000 and 14,000 of 
these grubs. The vegetable food of the two 
species of the three-toed woodpeckers are trif¬ 
ling amounts of fruit, mast and the interior 
layer of tree bark. 
The food of the California woodpecker on 
the other hand contains comparatively little ani¬ 
mal matter, less than 25 per cent., and besides 
it eats grain, fruits and mast. It appears to be 
fond of almonds, and in sections where almonds 
are largely cultivated develops a strong liking 
for these nuts. It stores them in holes drilled 
in the bark instead of the acorns which it usually 
employs. 
Complaint has been made of Lewis wood¬ 
pecker that it does damage to apples, and this 
subject has more than once been brought up in 
the columns of Forest and Stream. For those 
examined the stomachs seem to show that animal 
food is more than 37 per cent, and vegetable mat¬ 
ter more than 62 per cent. 
Less than one-third of the food of the red- 
bellied woodpecker appears to be animal, but the 
insects that it devours are, to a considerable ex¬ 
tent, harmful. Fruit and nuts make up the 
greater part of its vegetable food, but it has 
developed a taste for fruit, and in the Florida 
orange groves has proved itself an injurious 
species. 
Naturalists have given the sapsuckers a bad 
name, because they drill holes in the bark of 
fruit and other trees and drink the sweep sap. 
It is also said that the tapping of trees in this 
way destroys the value of the wood for lumber, 
and it is recommended that the sapsuckers be 
not protected. 
Two species of hummingbirds, the ruby 
throat and the Anna hummingbird are treated 
here. It is well known that hummingbirds eat 
a multitude of insects. On the other hand their 
food furnishes little economic interest, whereas 
the flycatcher feeds almost entirely on insects 
and unquestionably do an enormous lot of good. 
They should receive protection. 
The horned larks are useful, both for the 
animal and the vegetable matter that they con¬ 
sume. About 20 per cent, of their food is ani¬ 
mal and nearly 80 per cent, vegetable. They eat 
some grain, but only very little, but do eat a 
great quantity of weed seeds and nearly 70 per 
cent, of the food of the larks consist of noxious 
weeds. The insect food is largely of harmful 
insects. 
The little chipping sparrow, familiar over 
the whole United States, and so often building 
its nest in the vines which shade the piazza, is 
strictly a useful bird. More than a third of its 
food consists of insects, and in summer it is al¬ 
most wholly insects. The birds’ summer food 
is from 50 to 98 per cent, wild seeds and it de¬ 
stroys many harmful insects. It is thus one of 
the best friends of the farmer. The little junco 
or blue snowbird is another useful species. 
Three-fourths of its food is vegetable matter, 
but in summer this proportion falls to nearly 
half. The vegetable food consists of fruit seeds 
and waste grain, but chiefly weed seeds, as every 
country lover well knows. 
For the white-crowned sparrow the dietary 
is found to be animal food, only a little more 
than 7 per cent., and vegetable food nearly 93 
per cent. If it does not destroy a great propor¬ 
tion of harmful insects, the white-crowned spar¬ 
row at least consumes a vast number of weed 
seeds, which amount to 70 per cent, of the vege¬ 
table food. Some of these seeds are of most 
harmful and persistent weeds. 
The Southern butcher bird is a great con¬ 
sumer of grasshoppers, and the amount of vege¬ 
table food that it eats is trifling. It kills a few 
birds and eats some useful insects, but on the 
whole it is very destructive to many harmful 
beetles. On the other hand, the Southern butcher 
bird is nowhere very numerous. 
Audubon’s warbler and the ruby-crowned 
kinglet, birds that are seen at very different sea¬ 
sons of the year, are extremely useful birds, de¬ 
stroying great quantities of noxious insects and 
greatly helping to keep certain harmful species 
within bou ids. 
This bulletin is really useful to the farmer, 
and Dr. F. E. L. Beal and W. L. McAtee have 
made it a very interesting paper. 
