BIRDS
Birds give us pleasure in three ways: by their beauty, by their song and
by their usefulness in destroying animals, insects or plants which are
harmful to man.
But although they are among man's best friends they have been greatly
misunderstood, so that to the many natural enemies that are constantly
preying on birds, we must add the warfare that man himself wages on
them, and the cutting down of their forest homes. This work of bird
destruction has gone on until all the best species are greatly reduced
in numbers and some species have been almost entirely driven out.
To see how serious a matter this is we must study the food habits of
birds, and we shall find that although the different species eat a large
variety of food, in almost every case their natural food is something
harmful to man.
The large American birds, the eagles, hawks, owls and similar kinds, are
called birds of prey because they feed on small birds and animals. Some
of these are of the greatest benefit to the farmer, while others are
altogether harmful. Another large class of birds lives almost entirely
on injurious insects and this class is entitled to the fullest care and
protection from the farmer.
Still another class lives largely on fruits, wild or cultivated, and on
seeds, which may be either the farmer's most valuable grains, or seeds
of the weeds that would choke out the grain.
It can not be denied that birds often do serious damage through their
food habits; but the great mistake that has been made in man's treatment
of birds has been in hastily deciding that if birds are seen flitting
about fields of grain they are destroying the crop. A better knowledge
of their food habits will lead to proper measures for destroying the
harmful kinds and protecting the useful ones.
Successful agriculture could hardly be practised without birds, and the
benefit to man, though amounting each year to millions of dollars, can
hardly be estimated in dollars and cents, since it affects so closely
the size of our crops, the amount of timber saved for use in
manufactures, and even the health of the people.
Here again we see the careful balancing that runs through nature; how
carefully each thing is adjusted to its work. Naturally the balance
between birds, insects and plants would remain true, no one increasing
beyond its proper amount. But when man begins to destroy certain things,
and to cultivate others, this balance is seriously disturbed. The birds
that destroy weed seeds being killed, weeds flourish in such vast
numbers as to drive out the cultivated crops. The birds which destroy
mice, moles, gophers, etc., being killed, these animals become a
nuisance and cause serious losses. If insect-destroying birds are driven
out, the farmer will be at the mercy of the insects unless he employs
troublesome and expensive methods of getting rid of them. Certain
favorable conditions cause large numbers of birds to gather in a small
region and they become a pest. Very careful observation has shown that
in nearly every case the favorite food of the birds is something which
is not valued by man, and if this food is provided, the farm grains and
fruits will not be seriously molested.
Few birds are altogether good, still fewer are altogether bad; most
species are of great benefit, even if at the same time they do some
harm. Some birds do serious damage at one season, and much good at
another. The most notable example of this is the bobolink, which in
northern wheat fields is loved no less for his merry song than for the
thousands of weed seeds and insects he destroys; while in the South he
is known as the reed-bird or rice-bird, the most dreaded of all foes to
the rice crop.
Flying down on the fields by hundreds of thousands these birds often
take almost the entire crop of a district. The yearly loss to
rice-growers from bobolinks has been estimated at two million dollars.
If crows or blackbirds are seen in large numbers about fields of grain
they are generally accused of robbing the farmer, but more often they
are busily engaged in hunting the insects that without their help would
soon have destroyed his crop; and even if they do considerable damage at
one season they often pay for it many times over.
Whether a bird is helpful or the reverse, in fact, depends entirely on
the food it eats and often even farmers who have been familiar with
birds all their lives do not know what food a bird really eats. As an
example of the misunderstanding that is often found in regard to birds,
when hawks are seen searching the fields and meadows, or owls flying
about the orchards in the evening, the farmer always supposes that his
poultry is in danger, when in reality the birds are quite as likely to
be hunting for the animals which destroy grain, produce, young trees,
and eggs of birds.
In order to correct such mistaken ideas the Department of Agriculture
has made a most careful and accurate study of the habits of birds, and
it is the results of these observations that are recorded here.
Field workers from this Department who have observed the habits of the
principal birds that live among men, have watched them all day and from
one day to another as they fed their little ones, and, to be more
certain of their facts, they have examined the stomachs of hundreds of
birds, both old and young, to learn exactly what each bird had eaten. In
this way they have proved absolutely that many species that are supposed
to eat chickens, or fruit or grain, in reality never touch them, but are
among the farmer's best friends.
Among other things they have learned that while they are feeding their
young, birds are especially valuable on a farm. Baby birds require food
with a large amount of nourishment in it that can be easily digested.
Almost all young birds have soft, tender stomachs, and must be fed on
insects; as they grow older, the stomach or gizzard hardens and is
capable of grinding hard grain or seeds. The amount of food required by
the baby birds is astonishing. At certain stages of their growth they
require more than their own weight in insects. And the young birds are
to be fed just at the season that insects do the most injury to growing
crops of grain and young fruit and vegetables.
Birds vary so much in the kind of food eaten, not only by different
varieties of the same species, but by the same birds at different
seasons, that it is necessary to make a careful study of each bird to
know whether, if he is sometimes caught eating cultivated fruit and
grains, he helps in other ways enough to pay for it.
When insects are unusually abundant, birds eat more than at other times
and confine themselves more strictly to an insect diet, so that at such
times the good they do is particularly valuable.
Birds of prey may do harm in a particular place, because in that region
mice, rabbits and other natural food are scarce, and they are driven to
feed on things that are useful to man, while in places where their
natural food is plentiful the same birds are altogether helpful.
In the same way, birds which naturally eat weed seeds frequently find
these almost altogether lacking where the farms are most carefully
cultivated, but in their place are fields of grain whose seed also
furnishes them desirable food. Is it any wonder, then, that, their
natural food being taken from them, they turn to the cultivated crops?
The fruit eating birds seem always to choose the wild fruits, but where
these are not to be had they enter the orchards and soon become known as
enemies of the farmer.
A careful examination of the harm done by birds leads to the belief
that the damage is usually caused by a very large number of one species
of birds living in a small area. In such cases so great is the demand
for food of a particular kind that the supply is soon exhausted, and the
birds turn to the products of the field or orchard. The best conditions
exist when there are many varieties of birds in a region, but no one
variety in great numbers, for then they eat many kinds of insects and
weeds, and do not exhaust all the food supply of one kind. Under such
circumstances, too, the insect-eating birds would find plenty of insects
without preying on useful products, and the insects would be held in
check, so that the damage to crops would be slight.
The following are examples of the food eaten by birds and the good that
they thus accomplish to man:
During the outbreak of Rocky Mountain locusts in Nebraska, a scientific
observer watched a long-billed marsh wren carry thirty locusts to her
young in an hour and the same number was kept up regularly. At this
rate, for seven hours a day, a nest-ful of young wrens would eat two
hundred and ten locusts a day. From this he calculated that the birds of
eastern Nebraska would destroy daily nearly 163,000 locusts.
A locust eats its own weight in grain a day. The locusts eaten by the
baby birds would therefore be able to destroy one hundred and
seventy-five tons of crops, worth at least ten dollars a ton, or one
thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars.
So we see that birds have an actual cash value on the farm. The value of
the hay crop saved by meadow-larks in destroying grasshoppers has been
estimated at three hundred and fifty-six dollars on every township
thirty-six miles square.
An article contributed to the New York _Tribune_ by an official in the
Department of Agriculture estimated the amount of weed seeds annually
destroyed by the tree sparrow in the state of Iowa on the basis of
one-fourth of an ounce of seed eaten daily by each bird. Supposing there
were ten birds to each mile, in the two hundred days that they remain in
the region, we should have a total of 1,750,000 pounds, or eight hundred
and seventy-five tons, of weed seed consumed in a single season by this
one species in the one state. In a thicket near Washington, D. C. was a
large patch of weeds where sparrows fed during the winter. The ground
was literally black with the seeds in the spring but on examining them
it was found that nearly all had been cracked and the kernels eaten. A
search was made for seeds of various weeds but not more than half a
dozen could be found, while many thousands of empty seed-pods showed how
the birds had lived during the winter.
In no place are birds more important than in the forests, where they
save hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuable timber each
year. In forests there can be no rotation of crops and no cultivation,
and spraying, which keeps down the insect pests in the orchard, is
impossible here because of the expense. It would not pay to spray two or
three times a year a crop of timber that requires a lifetime to grow. So
in the forests the owner must depend entirely on birds for his
protection. How great the destruction of our forests would be is shown
by the fact that the damage at present is estimated at $100,000,000, in
spite of the fact that a vast army of birds is working tirelessly,
summer and winter, to devour the insects! The debt of the forester to
the birds can hardly be estimated.
A full variety of birds will thoroughly protect a farm and orchard. The
sparrows will destroy the weed seeds; the hawks and kites, flying by
day, will catch the meadow mice and other small mammals, and the owls
will pounce on those that venture forth at night. Of the insect-eating
birds, the larks, wrens, thrushes and sparrows search the ground for
worms, eggs and insects under leaves and logs everywhere. The
nuthatches, vireos, warblers and creepers search every part of the tree,
while the woodpeckers tap beneath the bark for grubs and worms. The
fly-catching birds catch their insect food on the wing among the trees
and branches, and, last of all, the swallows skim high in the air and
catch the few insects that rise high above the tree-tops.
Thus each family has its part of the work and the good they do is almost
too great to calculate. Without this check it would be impossible for
any green thing to flourish. So vast an amount of food is required to
feed the great army of insects that the task would be impossible in any
other way.
A brief description of some of the common birds and their food habits is
given here that farmers may know their friends, and that people
everywhere may learn to protect the useful birds and drive out the few
that do the mischief.
All of these observations have been made by field workers from the
Department of Agriculture, and no statement has been made that has not
been proved by the examination of many bird stomachs at different
seasons.
Highest of all in the list come the bluebirds. They are among the most
beautiful of our native birds, with their bright blue coats and soft red
breasts. They are sweet singers, and are among the first to return in
the spring to tell us of the return of summer. In addition to this they
have many good habits and absolutely no bad ones. More than
three-fourths of their food consists of insects,--beetles, grasshoppers
and caterpillars. The remainder is weed seeds and fruit, but there were
no reports of cultivated fruits being eaten by bluebirds. On the
contrary they eat the most undesirable of the wild fruit, chokeberry,
pokeberry, Virginia creeper, bitter-sweet and sumac, as well as large
quantities of ragweed seeds. Other birds are equally useful but none
combines usefulness with so much beauty and sweetness of song.
The tiny wrens are another class of wholly useful birds. Their food
consists almost entirely of insects with a very little grass-seed. They
search every tree, shrub, and vine for caterpillars, spiders and
grasshoppers.
Sparrows are almost equally useful. The tree sparrow, song sparrow,
chipping sparrow, field sparrow and snowbird or junco are all great
weed-seed destroyers. Many of them remain throughout the winter, when
they feed entirely on the seeds of weeds. Each bird eats at least a
quarter of an ounce of seeds per day, and they are often found by
thousands in a region. At least a half dozen varieties of birds are
feeding in the same ratio all over the country, reducing the crop of
next year's weeds. During the summer they turn to a diet composed partly
of insects and here again they help the farmer by eating the weevils,
leaf-beetles, grasshoppers, bugs and wasps that infest his crops.
The various species of swallows rank high as insect-eating birds. The
tree, bank, cliff and barn swallows and the purple martins all eat small
beetles, mosquitoes, flying ants and other high-flying insects, and the
number destroyed is almost beyond our power to imagine.
The most important service performed by swallows, however, is in the
South, where they migrate for the winter. There they feed largely on the
cotton boll-weevil, one of the most destructive of all insects, as we
have seen. The Department of Agriculture is urging strongly that farmers
in the North protect the swallows so that they may winter in the South
in large numbers to feed on the boll-weevil, which, if allowed to
flourish, will affect not only the southern planters, but every user of
cotton goods, and every one who profits in any way by the sale and
manufacture of cotton goods.
Among swallows, the beautiful and graceful purple martin is most worthy
of protection. Both North and South, the swallows are among the most
useful of all birds to the farmer and fruit grower, and should be
protected from English sparrows and encouraged in every possible way.
The seventeen species of titmice which inhabit the United States, and
many of which remain all winter, are all insect eaters to a great
extent, eating large quantities of tent-caterpillars, moths and their
eggs, weevils, including the cotton boll-weevil, plum-curculio, ants,
spiders, plant-lice, bugs and beetles. They also eat small seeds,
particularly those of the poison ivy.
The bush-tit feeds largely on insects that destroy grape-vines and on
the black olive scale. Other species eat most of the scales which infest
fruit and forest trees.
The rose-breasted grosbeak, while it eats a few green peas, is to be
classed among the wholly beneficial birds, for it is the great natural
destroyer of the Colorado potato beetle. In fact, it eats enough
potato-bugs at a single meal to pay for all the peas eaten in a whole
season. One family of grosbeaks, nesting near the field, will keep an
entire patch cleared of potato-bugs throughout the season. In some parts
of the country the grosbeak feeds largely on the plum scale, the hickory
scale, the locust and oak scales and on the tulip scale, which is very
destructive to shade trees. The black grosbeak is another variety that
deserves encouragement in every way, for it eats the chrysalis of the
codling-moth that is so serious a foe to our apple crop. It eats also
many other injurious insects, such as wire-worms, many of the most
harmful of beetles, caterpillars, and scales.
Among the most useful birds, we must mention the phoebe, which nests
near houses and lives almost entirely on harmful insects which it
catches on the wing.
Night hawks eat flying ants in great numbers, as many as eighteen
hundred having been found in a single stomach. They eat insects that fly
by night and are classed among our most useful birds.
Quails are almost unequalled as weed-destroyers. Throughout the fall and
winter they spend the time destroying weed seeds. In summer they eat
Colorado potato beetles, chinch-bugs, cotton boll-weevils,
squash-beetles, grasshoppers and cutworms. The mother quail, with her
family of twelve to twenty little ones, patrols the fields thoroughly
for insects. Quails should be prized as among a farmer's most valuable
helpers and protected at all seasons.
Similar in the good work it does is the meadow-lark. Grasshoppers,
caterpillars and cutworms form a large part of its diet, and its
vegetable food consists of weed seeds or waste grain.
King-birds are useful in protecting poultry and song birds from hawks,
and are also great fly catchers, taking many beetles on the wing.
Doves eat great quantities of seeds of harmful weeds. They also eat some
grain, but almost altogether after the crop has been gathered. Old
damaged corn and single grains scattered along the roads are eaten, but
there is no complaint of doves doing injury to fields of growing grain.
The orioles are beautiful, are sweet singers, and no exception can be
taken to their food habits. Caterpillars are their principal article of
food, but plant-and bark-lice, spiders and other insects are also eaten.
Orioles do not eat much vegetable food. They have been accused of eating
peas and grapes, but there seems no evidence to show that this habit is
general.
The food habits of cuckoos render them very desirable, since they eat
hairy caterpillars, particularly tent-caterpillars, for which they seem
to have an especial fondness, fall web-worms and locusts, besides other
injurious insects, but they are accused of bad habits in relation to
other birds, and can therefore hardly be classed among the wholly useful
birds. Warblers and vireos are among the most helpful birds in an
orchard, devouring large quantities of insects.
There is no class of birds concerning which it is more necessary that
the farmer should be well informed, than the hawks and owls, since some
of them are wholly good, and of the greatest possible benefit to him and
the fruit grower, while others are extremely harmful in their food
habits.
The harmful varieties live almost entirely on poultry and wild birds,
and include the goshawk or partridge hawk and the Cooper hawk, which is
a true chicken-hawk and should be recognized by all farmers at sight.
The goshawk and chicken-hawk, in the amount of damage done, far exceed
all other birds of prey. The sharp-shinned hawk rarely attacks
full-grown poultry, but preys heavily on young chickens and song birds.
In fact, it is known to eat nearly fifty species of our most useful
birds. There is no question that these birds are a serious pest and
should be destroyed, but they should not be confused with other members
of the family which are among the best friends that a farmer has in
keeping his farm clear of small enemies.
Owls and hawks eat the same class of food, the hawks flying by day and
the owls by night. Owls remain North in winter, while hawks fly farther
south.
The small species of both eat large quantities of insects, such as
grasshoppers, locusts and beetles. The larger ones are the farmer's
great protection against the meadow-mouse, the most destructive of all
animals to farm crops. It tunnels under fields and eats the roots of
grass, grain and potatoes, eats large amounts of grain and does even
more damage by girdling young trees in orchards. Rabbits injure trees in
the same way, often during the winter ruining an entire orchard in this
manner.
Squirrels, ground-squirrels, gophers, prairie-dogs, and other small
animals do serious damage in the course of a year on almost every farm.
The rough-leg hawk feeds entirely on meadow-mice, but if the supply
fails, it eats mice, rabbits and ground-squirrels, but in no instance
attacks birds. Its cousin, the ferruginous rough-leg, lives largely on
ground-squirrels, rabbits, prairie-dogs and pouched gophers. This
species also never attacks birds, and neither do any of the four members
of the kite family.
Another large class of birds,--the marsh-hawk, Harris hawk, red-tailed
hawk, red-shouldered hawk, short-tailed hawk, white-tailed hawk,
Swainson hawk, short-winged hawk, broad-winged hawk, Mexican black hawk,
Mexican goshawk, sparrow-hawk, barn-owl, long-eared owl, short-eared
owl, great gray owl, barred owl, western owl, Richardson owl,
screech-owl, snowy owl, hawk-owl, burrowing owl, pigmy owl and elf
owl--live mostly on destructive mammals, insects, frogs and snakes, but
they eat some birds and some of them occasionally catch poultry. Young
ones do much more harm than the full-grown ones, probably because they
find poultry and birds easier to obtain than other food. These species
all do great good on the farm and in the orchard and if their natural
food is plentiful and the number of the birds of prey limited, they
should be allowed to remain, even though they occasionally do harm; but
they can not be allowed to increase greatly in a region without becoming
a nuisance.
In another class the golden and bald eagles, pigeon and Richardson
hawks, prairie falcon and great horned owl do considerable harm, and the
good and bad qualities about balance. In a poorly settled region, where
there is plenty of natural food, a few of these birds will bring forth
little complaint, but in a section where there are few ground-squirrels,
prairie-dogs, gophers, rabbits and woodchucks, where poultry is raised
extensively, and useful birds are numerous they will do great harm and
farmers will usually want to keep them down entirely.
The gyrfalcons, duck-hawks, sharp-shinned hawk, Cooper hawk and goshawk
live almost entirely on food that is desired by man,--poultry, game
birds and many varieties of our best insect-destroying birds, and they
eat almost nothing that is harmful to man. The numbers of these birds
should be reduced as much as possible: but in general it may be said
that the birds of prey--the hawks and owls--are among the most, if not
the most, valuable birds that are engaged in helping the farmer by
destroying the natural enemies of agriculture.
Among the smaller birds which do much good, but of which complaints are
made because they eat some fruit and grain are the woodpeckers,
including the flickers, cedar-birds, robins, cat-birds, thrashers, crows
and blackbirds.
The woodpeckers are the great natural protection of the forests by
waging constant warfare on the wood-boring insects and ants beneath the
bark where no other birds can reach them. They are equally useful in an
orchard except that here man may only at great trouble and expense
partly hold them in check. Downy woodpeckers are also great eaters of
scales, and the fruit grower need not begrudge the red-headed woodpecker
a meal of cherries or apples, especially as it will usually be found
that it is the wormy fruit that is attacked.
The flicker or gold-winged woodpecker lives largely on ants, of which he
eats immense quantities, seeking them not only in the trees but on the
ground.
Robins are so well loved for their cheery song, for their friendliness
to man, and their red breasts coming as a touch of color in returning
spring, that except where they are present in great numbers, there is
little complaint of the fruit they eat, even without taking into account
the good work they accomplish as insect eaters. In fact only four per
cent. of a robin's food is cultivated and a little less than half of it
is wild fruit not prized by man. The remaining half consists of
caterpillars, beetles, spiders, snails and earth-worms.
The cat-bird is also known as a cherry-eater and he frequently helps
himself from strawberry and raspberry patches. He eats a larger
proportion of cultivated fruit than the robin, but about twice as much
wild fruit, including the sumac and poison ivy. The cat-bird eats many
injurious insects, which constitute only a little less than half of his
food.
The cedar-bird is sometimes called the cherry bird, and is accused of
being a great cherry-stealer, but an examination of stomachs showed that
only nine birds out of one hundred and fifty-two had eaten any cherries
and that cherries formed only five per cent. of the food of these few.
There is even evidence that this bird prefers wild fruits, which form
its principal food though it eats a few insects.
The crows and blackbirds are accused of many bad habits, such as pulling
up young corn, destroying large quantities of grain and injuring much
fruit by pecking holes in it which are later entered by insects. Crows
eat fruit to some extent, but the greater part of it is wild. Both crows
and blackbirds are accused of robbing the nests of other birds.
Blackbirds are injurious chiefly because they gather in such large
flocks that when they descend on a field they can eat a large amount of
grain in a short space of time. The greatest good accomplished by the
blackbird is in the spring when it follows the plow in search of
grub-worms, of which it is extremely fond. It also does much good in
destroying insects in the early summer, the young birds being fed almost
entirely on insect food until they are grown.
Of the crow, Doctor Merriam, who is at the head of this branch of work
in the Department of Agriculture, says, "Instead of being an enemy of
the farmer, as is generally believed, the crow is one of his best
friends and the protector of his crops. True, during corn-planting time,
the crow's bill is turned against the farmer during one month, and one
month only is he his enemy. But during the other eleven months the crow
is really working overtime for him. It eats thousands upon thousands of
destructive insects and bugs every week, and when it comes to feeding
its young, gives them a diet composed almost entirely of worms and
insects that prey upon the crops."
Another government report says, "The crow should receive much credit for
the insects which it destroys. In the more thickly settled parts of the
country it probably does more good than harm, at least when ordinary
precautions are taken to protect young poultry and newly planted corn
from it." It is probable that in many parts of the country some farmers
will find it desirable to reduce the number of crows and blackbirds on
their farms.
The brown thrasher is a beautiful singer and eats many insects, mostly
injurious. It eats some cultivated fruits. It also eats a small amount
of newly planted corn, but at the same time clears the field of May
beetles. Altogether it is a useful bird but not one of the highest
benefit.
There are a few species of birds of which but little good can be said,
and which it may be desirable to attempt to drive out in many parts of
the United States. Chief of these is the English sparrow. It is of a
quarrelsome disposition and is much given to driving other birds from
their nests. In some districts it has completely expelled some of the
most useful kinds of birds. It exists everywhere in such numbers as to
render it a nuisance, and it may be said to be the greatest pest among
American birds. Its favorite food is dandelion seeds, and it destroys
many thousands of seeds, but as the dandelion does no real injury this
habit does not offset all the harm done. It also eats other weed seeds
but the greatest thing to be said in its favor is that it feeds on the
cottony maple scale. It is probable that in small numbers the English
sparrow might be classed among the useful, or, at least, one of the only
partly harmful birds, but there is no bird whose numbers it is more
desirable to reduce.
The common blue-jay is accused of some very bad habits, among them
eating the eggs and young of small birds. It is a fruit eater and also
a grain eater and frequently robs corn-cribs and injures newly planted
fields. However, it eats some insects, mice and other small enemies of
the farmer and as it is nowhere very plentiful, and does not live in
flocks, there is not much cause for complaint. However, its cousin, the
California jay, has an extremely bad record. It is a great fruit eater,
and devastates prune, apricot, and cherry orchards. It is a serious
robber of the nests of small birds and hens, and though it eats some
grasshoppers and a very few weed seeds, it is thoroughly disliked by
western fruit growers. It should be greatly reduced in numbers. Another
California bird that has gained a bad reputation is the house finch or
linnet. It does serious harm in the cherry and apricot orchards, not so
much by eating as by pecking at the fruit. It probably pecks, and thus
destroys, five times as much fruit as it eats. As the bird is very
abundant, it sometimes causes the loss of almost the entire crop of a
small fruit grower. It does not deserve protection, for it eats the buds
and blossoms of fruit trees and does little to compensate for all the
harm done. Its best habit is eating woolly plant-lice.
No article on birds would be complete that does not dwell on the
enormous destruction of birds for trimming hats. As one writer puts it,
we pay eight hundred million dollars a year for hat trimmings, assuming
the insect ravages to be due to the killing of our birds for millinery
purposes. While this is exaggerated, it is undoubtedly true that this is
the largest cause of the destruction of the birds of America.
The Audubon society says that we, as a nation, use 150,000,000 birds a
year for trimming hats alone and that this single item would save our
crops from insect destruction and largely rid our fields of weeds.
If a few hundred dollars are stolen from a bank, the greatest efforts
are made to catch the thief, and if possible to get the money back; but
the great army of insects destroy each year, almost as much in money
value as all the national banks in the country have on deposit, and this
wholesale destruction might largely be prevented if every woman and girl
took (and kept) a pledge not to use wings, breasts, or birds on her
hats. There is no objection to the use of ostrich feathers, which are
carefully plucked from the live birds. The feathers grow again, just as
the wool grows on sheep that have been sheared. Neither is there any
objection to using the feathers of the barn-yard fowls which are killed
for food.
Only a little less is the loss caused by so-called "sportsmen," men who
kill only for the pleasure of shooting, or who, because they like the
taste of quail, shoot as many as they can in a day instead of only
enough to satisfy hunger. Often a farmer sells for a very small amount
the privilege of hunting on his farm, thinking he is making money when
in fact he is losing ten dollars for every one he makes.
The quail, sparrows and other birds on the farm are destroyed. As a
result the weed seeds are not eaten and a big crop comes up in the
spring. In the summer there are no quail on the farm to destroy insects.
The insects and the weeds together make the crop poorer, and the owner
feels that farming is growing less profitable, when in fact he has
failed to take ordinary precautions to obtain a good crop by protecting
the birds.
With the huntsman and his bag of birds we may class the small boy with
his rifle or sling-shot. A single boy does little harm but all the boys
in the country taken together do a grave amount of damage.
Last in the list comes the egg hunters, who by robbing nests can kill
four or five birds at a time, simply for mischief. A party of boys can,
by a day's sport, make a serious difference in the number of birds in a
region where they are not plentiful and thus have a large share in
damaging the crops.
If, then, birds play so large a part in the welfare of the farm and in
turn in the prices of farm crops, fruit, lumber and cotton cloth, it is
most desirable that every effort be made to reduce the numbers of
harmful birds and to encourage the useful species.
Many of the states now have excellent laws for the protection of birds;
but without a large number of game wardens, it is difficult to enforce
the laws closely unless the public sentiment is strongly against the
killing of birds. Laws should be made to protect birds against the egg
hunter, (except for the purpose of study, and then a license should be
required), sling-shots should be prohibited, as they already are in many
places. All hunters should be required to have a license, the number of
birds killed by a single person in a single day should be limited, and
certain birds should always be protected by law. These laws should be as
nearly uniform as possible in all the states and there must be a desire
on the part of all the people to see these laws obeyed.
The boys and girls should be banded together in the schools or in
societies and pledged to protect birds and not to destroy them. The
girls should pledge themselves not to wear birds for ornament.
Women's clubs might do much to popularize the movement for the
protection of birds, and to that end should try to establish a sentiment
among their members against their use for millinery.
All these agencies working together will make a vast difference in the
number of birds, and as a result, in the good that they do, but the
great work must be done by farmers themselves. They will need to protect
themselves in certain ways against the harm done by many of the birds
that on the whole are extremely useful.
To protect poultry from owls do not allow it to roost in the trees; to
protect from hawks, keep the young ones near the house, and if possible
cover their runways with wire netting.
To protect against grain eating, use scarecrows or put up a dead crow as
a warning. Mixing seed corn with tar so as to coat it will prevent crows
from pulling it up at planting time.
To protect against fruit eating, plant wild fruits. The best of all
trees for this purpose is the Russian mulberry, which ripens at the same
time that cherries do and is particularly relished by all fruit-eating
birds. If planted in barn-lots, chickens and hogs will eat all the fruit
that falls to the ground, making it serve a double purpose. The fruit of
wild cherry, elder, dogwood, haws, and mountain-ash are eaten by birds,
and if a farm be planted with such trees and bushes in the barn-yard,
along the lanes or in some of those unproductive spots that are to be
found on every farm, birds will be attracted to the farm and will pay
well for themselves, and the farmer's crop of cultivated fruit will be
protected. Birds themselves distribute many seeds, particularly of wild
fruits.
The farmer who keeps several cats must pay for it in the loss of birds,
for birds will not nest where they are constantly watched by cats. Boxes
for martins and other birds, bits of hay, horse-hair and string
scattered about will often encourage birds to build about an orchard or
farm. A wood-lot, besides paying in other ways, will afford nesting
places for a large number of birds. To place a drinking and bathing
place near the house is one of the best methods of attracting birds,
which will use it constantly.
By all these methods and a little winter feeding with crumbs, apple
peelings or waste fruit and grain, the farmer will be able to induce a
good variety of birds to nest on his farm, and will receive in return
great protection from the small mammals, insects and weeds that would
lessen the amount of his harvests.
REFERENCES
Relation Between Birds and Insects. Yearbook 486.
Annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution.
Annual Reports of the National Audubon Society.
Bird Day. How to Prepare For It. C. C. Babcock.
Bird Neighbors. John Burroughs.
Bird enemies. John Burroughs.
How to Attract the Birds. N. B. Doubleday.
The Food of Nestling Birds. Yearbook 1900.
Does It Pay the Farmer to Protect Birds? Yearbook 1907.
Birds as Weed Destroyers. Yearbook 1898.
How Birds Affect the Orchard. Yearbook 1900.
Value of Swallows as Insect Destroyers. Yearbook Reprint.
Birds That Eat Scale Insects. Yearbook Reprint.
Birds Useful for the Destruction of the Cotton Boll-Weevil. Dept. of
Agriculture Bulletins 57, 64.
Hawks and Owls From the Standpoint of the Farmer. Dept. of Agriculture
Bulletin 61.
Some Common Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture. Dept. of Agriculture
Bulletin 54.
Four Common Birds of the Farm and Garden. Yearbook 1895.