The tiny wrens are another cla.s.s of wholly useful birds. Their food consists almost entirely of insects with a very little gra.s.s-seed. They search every tree, shrub, and vine for caterpillars, spiders and gra.s.shoppers.
Sparrows are almost equally useful. The tree sparrow, song sparrow, chipping sparrow, field sparrow and s...o...b..rd 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, gra.s.shoppers, 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 t.i.tmice which inhabit the United States, and many of which remain all winter, are all insect eaters to a great extent, eating large quant.i.ties 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-t.i.t 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 cla.s.sed 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 cla.s.sed 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, gra.s.shoppers 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. Gra.s.shoppers, 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 quant.i.ties 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 princ.i.p.al 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 cla.s.sed among the wholly useful birds. Warblers and vireos are among the most helpful birds in an orchard, devouring large quant.i.ties of insects.
There is no cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 quant.i.ties of insects, such as gra.s.shoppers, 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 gra.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, including the flickers, cedar-birds, robins, cat-birds, thrashers, crows and blackbirds.
The woodp.e.c.k.e.rs 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.rs are also great eaters of scales, and the fruit grower need not begrudge the red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.r lives largely on ants, of which he eats immense quant.i.ties, 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 const.i.tute 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 princ.i.p.al 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 quant.i.ties 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 s.p.a.ce 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 cla.s.sed 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 gra.s.shoppers 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g hats. As one writer puts it, we pay eight hundred million dollars a year for hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, a.s.suming 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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 cla.s.s 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.