338 
market so cheap that, for a penny, you might 
have as many as you could carry away; and yet, 
from the extreme cheapness, you must not con¬ 
clude that they are but ordinary food; on the 
contrary—they are excellent.” These 'birds fur¬ 
nished soups and fricassees, which were usually 
dressed with cream sauce and small onions. In 
some parts, they served as luxuries on the tables 
of the aristocrats. In requital for the damage 
they did, “The farmers, besides having plenty of 
them for home use, and giving them to their 
servants, and even to their dogs and pigs, salted 
caskfuls of them for the winter.” The traveler 
found little else at the inns when Pigeons were 
flying. The savages heaped their "boards with a 
royal abundance of them. They could eat them 
fresh, dried, smoked, or any other way. On 
Lake Michigan, they often gathered the dead Pig¬ 
eons which floated on shore, usually smoking 
what were not needed for immediate use. 
In the South, Lawson (1714) found “several 
Indian towns of not above seventeen houses, 
that had more than one hundred gallons of pig¬ 
eons’s oil or fat; they using it with pulse or 
bread as we do butter, . . Not infrequently 
in the Indian and Revolutionary wars, Pigeons 
helped the commissary when supplies were low. 
For the hardy pioneers, their feathers made bet¬ 
ter beds than did corn husks, and one writer 
suggested a use for their dung. Pie held that, 
with little expense, great quantities of the best 
saltpetre could be extracted from their ordure. 
It is difficult to estimate the very, important role 
of the Pigeon in the economy of the early pio¬ 
neers, yet it is striking enough to arrest the at¬ 
tention of all. 
Their Food .—Doubtless much of their excel¬ 
lent flavor and delicacy was due to the nature of 
their food. In the North and South alike they 
showed a marked preference for beechnuts and 
acorns of all kinds. They furnished an animat¬ 
ed sight, indeed, when digging in the snow for 
the latter. In the earliest days, the colonists 
complained because they beat down and ate up 
great quantities of all sorts of English grain. 
They could subsist on wheat, rye, oats, corn, 
peas and other farm produce. Neither were 
they averse to garden fruits. In the summer, 
when the strawberries, raspberries, mulberries 
and currants were ripe, they showed a 
particular fondness for them. They were quite 
partial to the seeds of red maple and American 
elm, wild grapes, wild peas, and pokeberry {Phy¬ 
tolacca), which was known in many parts as Pig¬ 
eon-berry. Another vegetable form bore the 
same name. Pursh said they found the Pigeon- 
berries or Pigeon peas attached to roots, and 
they were “nothing else, than the tuberculis of a 
species of Glycine, resembling marrowfat peas 
very much: the Pigeons scratch them up at cer¬ 
tain times of the year and feed upon them very 
greedily.” 
Two quotations will give interesting sidelights 
on their methods of feeding. A Mr. Bradbury, 
in 1810, “had an opportunity of observing the 
manner in which they feed; it affords a most 
singular spectacle, and is also an example of the 
rigid discipline maintained by gregarious ani¬ 
mals. This species of pigeon associates in pro¬ 
digious flocks: one of these flocks, when on the 
ground, will cover an area of several acres in 
extent, and so close to each other that the 
FOREST AND STREAM 
ground can scarcely be seen. This phalanx 
moves through the woods with considerable ce¬ 
lerity, picking, as it passes along, everything 
that will serve for food. It is evident that the 
foremost ranks must be most successful, and no¬ 
thing will remain for the hindermost. That all 
may have an equal chance, the instant that any 
rank becomes last, they arise, and flying over the 
whole flock, alight exactly ahead of the foremost. 
They succeed each other with so much rapidity 
that there is a continued stream of them in the 
air; and a side view of them exhibits the appear¬ 
ance of the segment of a large circle, moving 
through the woods. I observed that they cease 
to look for food a considerable time before they 
become the last rank, but strictly adhere to their 
regulations, and never rise until there are none 
behind them.” In 1758, DuPratz, when on the 
Mississippi River, “heard a confused noise which 
seemed to come along the river from a consider¬ 
able distance below us . . . How great was my 
surprise when I . . . observed it to proceed 
from a short, thick pillar on the bank of the 
river. 'When I drew still nearer to it, I per¬ 
ceived that it was formed by a legion of wood- 
pigeons, who kept continually up and down suc¬ 
cessively among the branches of an evergreen 
oak, in order to beat down the acorns with their 
wings. Every now and then some alighted, to 
eat the acorns which they themselves or the 
others -had beat down; for they all acted in com¬ 
mon, and eat in common; no avarice nor private 
interest appearing among them, but each labor¬ 
ing as much for the rest as for himself.” 
If only the human species would emulate this 
communal spirit, act in unison for bird-protec¬ 
tion without commercial quibbling, curb its ma¬ 
nia for bird-adornment, check excessive “sport for 
sport’s sake,” and annihilate potting for market, 
some of our threatened birds would re-establish 
their slender hold and escape their impending 
extinction. In the early settlements, Pigeons, Tur¬ 
keys, Paroquets, and Heath Hens were plentiful; 
civilization and culture came; the hills and valleys 
were deforested; the lowlands were cultivated; 
in short, the balance of nature was excessively 
disturbed; yet where have we collectively pro¬ 
vided these original occupants refuge, or how 
have we restrained ourselves, to promote their 
greater increase, when they were njost rapidly 
lessening? The conscience balm has always 
been, “They will be ever common.” 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
BIRDS AND THE ALFALFA WEEVIL. 
For a dozen years past a small beetle known 
as the alfalfa weevil has been doing serious in¬ 
jury to the alfalfa crops in Utah. This beetle 
does not -seem to 'be native to the United States, 
but to have been introduced. The damage it 
did was at first confined chiefly to Utah, but 
it spread to the adjoining States of Wyoming 
and Idaho, where it became a pest. 
The alfalfa weevil is less than one-quarter of 
an inch in length; it hibernates in the adult 
stage through the winter under piles of rubbish, 
in haystacks and weed heaps, and on the ap¬ 
proach of spring, on fair, warm days, begins to 
fly about- The eggs are laid in April on the 
alfalfa which is then just starting; and hatch in 
ten or twelve days. For the next month or 
two the larvae feed on the growing plant, and 
often ruin the entire crop. By the early part 
of July the larvae have become adults, the sur¬ 
vivors of which will hibernate to lay their eggs 
the following spring. The damage done by these 
insects was so great that the Bureau of Ento¬ 
mology of the Department of Agriculture, and 
the Biological Survey combined to see what, if 
anything, might be done to reduce it. The re¬ 
sults of the Biological Survey’s study have just 
been made public in a Bulletin issued by the 
Department giving the observations of E. R. 
Kalmbach. 
Mr. Kalmbach spent parts of the spring and 
summer of the years 1911 and 1912 at various- 
points in the region occupied by this weevil, 
studying the food habits of local birds, and of a 
few batrachians—toads and frogs—-which might 
naturally be expected to feed on this beetle. 
As the beetle appears to be new to the re¬ 
gion in question, it would, of course, be new 
to the birds inhabiting that region, and it would 
take them some time to discover this new food 
supply and to learn to feed on it. Neverthe¬ 
less, forty-five species of birds were found to 
have eaten the insect, and the beetle or its 
larvae, at certain times in spring or summer, 
formed a very large part of the food of many 
of these birds. It is interesting to observe that 
the almost universally execrated English spar¬ 
row proved to be one of the -most efficient ene¬ 
mies of the weevil. 
The method by which the service performed 
by the different birds was detected was by an 
examination of the stomach contents of a con¬ 
siderable number of species taken at different 
times of the year and at different ages. 
Of the more useful birds one was the kill- 
deer plover, which in May or June feeds largely 
on the weevil, which made up about one-third of 
the food of the bird. One killdeer examined 
had eaten nine adult beetles, and 307 larvae. 
Another had destroyed seven adults and 376 
larvae. 
The Valley Quail is useful as a weevil de¬ 
stroyer. Five of these birds obtained in May 
and June gave the following results: 165 larvae 
and seven adults, 126 larvae and one adult, 317 
larvae and two adults, 128 larvae and one adult, 
and 75 larvae and two adults. This food aver¬ 
aged about one-third of the stomach contents 
and formed more than 95 per cent, of the ani¬ 
mal portion of the birds diet. The woodpeckers 
and the flycatchers, while eating the weevil to 
some extent, cannot be called particularly effi¬ 
cient enemies to it, but the Magpie kills a great 
many, especially in early spring, when they come 
out of hibernation. 
The bobolink is an especially useful bird, and 
of those taken in the month of June the weevils 
formed not far from 70 per cent, of the total 
food. The cowbunting is also a weevil destroyer. 
The yellow-headed blackbird is less efficient, but 
the redwing destroys great numbers of weevils, 
and as it is one of the earliest birds to arrive 
in spring, it catches the beetles when they emerge 
from hibernation, and before they have had an 
opportunity to lay their eggs. The meadowlark 
is also very useful, especially in April and May. 
Later in the season the increasing number of in¬ 
sects of various species cuts down the proportion 
of weevils devoured. 
(Continued on page 350 -) 
