CHAPTER XXIIITHE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS
To-day, from Halifax to Los Angeles, and from Key West to Victoria, a deadly contest is being waged. The fruit-growers, farmers, forest owners and "park people" are engaged in a struggle with the insect hordes for the possession of the trees, shrubs and crops. Go out into the open, with your eyes open, and you will see it for yourself. Millions of dollars are being expended in it. Look at this exhibit of what is going on around me, at this very moment,—July 19, 1912:
The bag insects, in thousands, are devouring the leaves of locust and maple trees.
The elm beetles are trying to devour the elms; and spraying is in progress.
The hickory-bark borers are slaughtering the hickories; and even some park people are neglecting to take the measures necessary to stop it!
The tent caterpillars are being burned.
The aphis (scale insects) are devouring the tops of thewhite potatoesin the New York University school garden, just as the potato beetle does.
The codling moth larvae are already at work on the apples.
The leaves affected by the witch hazel gall fly are being cut off and burned.
These are merely the most conspicuous of the insect pests that I now see daily. I am not counting those of second or third-rate importance.
Some of these hordes are being fought with poisonous sprays, some are being killed by hand, and some are being ignored.
In view of the known value of the remaining trees of our country, each woodpecker in the United States is worth twenty dollars in cash. Each nuthatch, creeper and chickadee is worth from five to ten dollars, according to local circumstances. You might just as well cut down four twenty-inch trees and let them lie and decay, as to permit one woodpecker to be killed and eaten by an Italian in the North, or a negro in the South. The downy woodpecker is the relentless enemy of the codling moth, an insect that annually inflicts upon our apple crop damages estimated by the experts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at twelve million dollars!
Now, is a federal strong-arm migratory bird law needed for such birds or not? Let the owners of orchards and forests make answer.
DOWNY WOODPECKER
The Case Of The Codling Moth And Curculio.—The codling moth and curculio are twin terrors to apple-growers, partly because of theirdeadly destructiveness, and partly because man is so weak in resisting them. The annual cost of the fight made against them, in sprays and labor and apparatus, has been estimated at $8,250,000. And what do the birds do to the codling moth,—when there are any birds left alive to operate? The testimony comes from all over the United States, and it is worth while to cite it briefly as a fair sample of the work of the birds upon this particularly deadly pest. These facts and quotations are from the "Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture," for 1911.
The Downy Woodpeckeris the champion tree-protector, and also one of the greatest enemies of the codling moth. When man is quite unable to find the hidden larvae, Downy locates it every time, and digs it out. It extracts worms from young apples so skillfully that often the fruit is not permanently injured. Mr. F.M. Webster reports that the labors of this bird "afford actual and immediate relief to the infected fruit." Testimony in favor of the downy woodpecker has come from New York, New Jersey, Texas and California, "and no fewer than twenty larvae have been taken from a single stomach."
Take theRed-Shafted Flickervs. the codling moth. Mr. A.P. Martin of Petaluma, Cal., states that during the early spring months (of 1890) they were seen by hundreds in his orchard, industriously examining the trunks and larger limbs of the fruit trees; and he also found great numbers of them around sheds where he stored his winter apples and pears. As the result of several hours' search, Mr. Martin found only one worm, and this one escaped only by accident, for several of the birds had been within a quarter of an inch of it. "So eager are woodpeckers in search, of codling moths that they have often been known to riddle the shingle traps and paper bands which are placed to attract the larvae about to spin cocoons."
Behold the array of birds that devour the larvae of the codling moth to an important extent.
In all, says Mr. W.L. McAtee, thirty-six species of birds of thirteen families help man in his irrepressible conflict against his deadly enemy, the codling moth. "In some places they destroy from sixty-six to eighty-five per cent of the hibernating larvae."
Now, are the farmers of this country content to let the Italians of the North, and the negroes of the South, shoot those birds for food, and devour them? What is the great American farmer going todoabout this matter? What he should do is to write and urge his members of Congress to work for and vote for the federal migratory bird bill.
The Cotton Boll Weevil.—Let us take one other concrete case. The cotton boll weevil invaded the United States from Mexico in 1894. Ten years later it was costing the cotton planters an annual loss estimated at fifteen million dollars per year. Later on that loss was estimated at twenty million dollars. The cotton boll weevil strikes at the heart of the industry by destroying the boll of the cotton plant. While the totalloss never can be definitely ascertained, we know that it has amounted to many millions of dollars. The figure given above has been widely quoted, and so far as I am aware, never disputed.
Fortunately we have at hand a government publication on this subject which gives some pertinent facts regarding the bird enemies of the cotton boll weevil. It is Circular No. 57 of the Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture. Any one can obtain it by addressing that Department. I quote the most important portions of this valuable document:
Birds Useful In The War Against The Cotton Boll Weevil.
By H.W. Henshaw, Chief of the Biological Survey.
The main purpose of this circular is to direct the attention of cotton growers and others in the cotton growing states to the importance of birds in the boll weevil war, to emphasize the need of protection for them, and to suggest means to increase the numbers and extend the range of certain of the more important kinds.Investigations by the Biological Survey show that thirty-eight species of birds eat boll weevils. While some eat them only sparingly others eat them freely, and no fewer than forty-seven adult weevils have been found in the stomach of a single cliff swallow. Of the birds known at the present time to feed on the weevil, among the most important are the orioles, nighthawks, and, foremost of all, the swallows (including the purple martin).Orioles.—Six kinds of orioles live in Texas, though but two inhabit the southern states generally. Orioles are among the few birds that evince a decided preference for weevils, and as they persistently hunt for the insects on the bolls, they fill a place occupied by no other birds. They are protected by law in nearly every state in the Union, but their bright plumage renders them among the most salable of birds for millinery purposes, and despite protective laws, considerable numbers are still killed for the hat trade. It is hardly necessary to point out that their importance as insect eaters everywhere demands their protection, but more especially in the cotton belt.From the "American Natural History"THE BALTIMORE ORIOLEThe Deadly Enemy of the Cotton-Boll WeevilTHE NIGHTHAWKA Goatsucker, not a Song-bird; but it Feeds Exclusively Upon InsectsNighthawk.—The nighthawk, or bull-bat, also renders important service in the destruction of weevils, and catches them on the wing in considerable numbers, especially during its migration. Unfortunately,the nighthawk is eaten for food in some sections of the South, and considerable numbers are shot for this purpose. The bird's value for food, however, is infinitesimal as compared with the service it renders the cotton grower and other agriculturists, and every effort should be made to spread broadcast a knowledge of its usefulness as a weevil destroyer, with a view to its complete protection.Swallows.—Of all the birds now known to destroy weevils, swallows are the most important. Six species occur in Texas and the southern states.The martin, the barn swallow, the bank swallow, the roughwing, and the cliff swallow breed locally in Texas, and all of them, except the cliff swallow, breed in the other cotton states. The white-bellied, or tree swallow, nests only in the North, and by far the greater number of cliff swallows nest in the North and West.As showing how a colony of martins thrives when provided with sufficient room to multiply, an experiment by Mr. J. Warren Jacobs, of Waynesburg, Pa., may be cited. The first year five pairs were induced to occupy the single box provided, and raised eleven young. The fourth year three large boxes, divided into ninety-nine rooms, contained fifty-three pairs, and they raised about 175 young. The colony was thus nearly three hundred strong at the close of the fourth season. The effect of this number of hungry martins on the insects infesting the neighborhood may be imagined.From the standpoint of the farmer and the cotton grower, swallows are among the most useful birds. Especially designed by nature to capture insects in midair, their powers of flight and endurance are unexcelled, and in their own field they have no competitors. Their peculiar value to the cotton grower consists in the fact that, like the nighthawk, they capture boll weevils when flying over the fields, which no other birds do. Flycatchers snap up the weevils near trees and shrubbery. Wrens hunt them out when concealed under bark or rubbish. Blackbirds catch them on the ground, as do the killdeer, titlark, meadow lark, and others; while orioles hunt for them on the bolls. But it is the peculiar function of swallows to catch the weevils as they are making long flights, leaving the cotton fields in search of hiding places in which to winter or entering them to continue their work of devastation.Means have been taken to inform residents of the northern states of the value of the swallow tribe to agriculturists generally, and particularly to cotton planters, in the belief that the number of swallows breeding in the North can be substantially increased. The cooperation of the northern states is important, since birds bred in the North migrate directly through the southern states in the fall on their way to the distant tropics, and also in the spring on their return.Important as it is to increase the number of northern breeding swallows, it is still more important to increase the number nesting in the South and to induce the birds there to extend their range over as much of the cotton area as possible. Nesting birds spend much more time in the South than migrants, and during the weeks when the old birds are feeding young they are almost incessantly engaged in the pursuit of insects.It is not, of course, claimed that birds alone can stay the ravages of the cotton boll weevil in Texas, but they materially aid in checking the advance of the pest into the other cotton states. Important auxiliaries, in destroying these insects, birds aid in reducing their numbers within safe limits, and once within safe limits in keeping them there. Hence it is for the interests of the cotton states that special efforts be made to protect and care for the weevil-eating species, and to increase their numbers in every way possible.—(End of the circular.)
The main purpose of this circular is to direct the attention of cotton growers and others in the cotton growing states to the importance of birds in the boll weevil war, to emphasize the need of protection for them, and to suggest means to increase the numbers and extend the range of certain of the more important kinds.
Investigations by the Biological Survey show that thirty-eight species of birds eat boll weevils. While some eat them only sparingly others eat them freely, and no fewer than forty-seven adult weevils have been found in the stomach of a single cliff swallow. Of the birds known at the present time to feed on the weevil, among the most important are the orioles, nighthawks, and, foremost of all, the swallows (including the purple martin).
Orioles.—Six kinds of orioles live in Texas, though but two inhabit the southern states generally. Orioles are among the few birds that evince a decided preference for weevils, and as they persistently hunt for the insects on the bolls, they fill a place occupied by no other birds. They are protected by law in nearly every state in the Union, but their bright plumage renders them among the most salable of birds for millinery purposes, and despite protective laws, considerable numbers are still killed for the hat trade. It is hardly necessary to point out that their importance as insect eaters everywhere demands their protection, but more especially in the cotton belt.
From the "American Natural History"
THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE
The Deadly Enemy of the Cotton-Boll Weevil
THE NIGHTHAWK
A Goatsucker, not a Song-bird; but it Feeds Exclusively Upon Insects
Nighthawk.—The nighthawk, or bull-bat, also renders important service in the destruction of weevils, and catches them on the wing in considerable numbers, especially during its migration. Unfortunately,the nighthawk is eaten for food in some sections of the South, and considerable numbers are shot for this purpose. The bird's value for food, however, is infinitesimal as compared with the service it renders the cotton grower and other agriculturists, and every effort should be made to spread broadcast a knowledge of its usefulness as a weevil destroyer, with a view to its complete protection.
Swallows.—Of all the birds now known to destroy weevils, swallows are the most important. Six species occur in Texas and the southern states.The martin, the barn swallow, the bank swallow, the roughwing, and the cliff swallow breed locally in Texas, and all of them, except the cliff swallow, breed in the other cotton states. The white-bellied, or tree swallow, nests only in the North, and by far the greater number of cliff swallows nest in the North and West.
As showing how a colony of martins thrives when provided with sufficient room to multiply, an experiment by Mr. J. Warren Jacobs, of Waynesburg, Pa., may be cited. The first year five pairs were induced to occupy the single box provided, and raised eleven young. The fourth year three large boxes, divided into ninety-nine rooms, contained fifty-three pairs, and they raised about 175 young. The colony was thus nearly three hundred strong at the close of the fourth season. The effect of this number of hungry martins on the insects infesting the neighborhood may be imagined.
From the standpoint of the farmer and the cotton grower, swallows are among the most useful birds. Especially designed by nature to capture insects in midair, their powers of flight and endurance are unexcelled, and in their own field they have no competitors. Their peculiar value to the cotton grower consists in the fact that, like the nighthawk, they capture boll weevils when flying over the fields, which no other birds do. Flycatchers snap up the weevils near trees and shrubbery. Wrens hunt them out when concealed under bark or rubbish. Blackbirds catch them on the ground, as do the killdeer, titlark, meadow lark, and others; while orioles hunt for them on the bolls. But it is the peculiar function of swallows to catch the weevils as they are making long flights, leaving the cotton fields in search of hiding places in which to winter or entering them to continue their work of devastation.
Means have been taken to inform residents of the northern states of the value of the swallow tribe to agriculturists generally, and particularly to cotton planters, in the belief that the number of swallows breeding in the North can be substantially increased. The cooperation of the northern states is important, since birds bred in the North migrate directly through the southern states in the fall on their way to the distant tropics, and also in the spring on their return.
Important as it is to increase the number of northern breeding swallows, it is still more important to increase the number nesting in the South and to induce the birds there to extend their range over as much of the cotton area as possible. Nesting birds spend much more time in the South than migrants, and during the weeks when the old birds are feeding young they are almost incessantly engaged in the pursuit of insects.
It is not, of course, claimed that birds alone can stay the ravages of the cotton boll weevil in Texas, but they materially aid in checking the advance of the pest into the other cotton states. Important auxiliaries, in destroying these insects, birds aid in reducing their numbers within safe limits, and once within safe limits in keeping them there. Hence it is for the interests of the cotton states that special efforts be made to protect and care for the weevil-eating species, and to increase their numbers in every way possible.—(End of the circular.)
Condensed Notes On The Food Habits Of Certain North American Birds.
Millions of Americans and near-Americans, both old and young, now need to be shown the actual figures that represent the value of our birds as destroyers of the insects, weeds and the small rodents that are swarming to overrun and devour our fields, orchards and forests. Will our people never learn that in fighting pests the birds are worth ten times more to men than all the poisons, sprays and traps that ever were invented or used?
THE PURPLE MARTIN
A Representative of the Swallow Family. A Great Insect-eater; one of the Most Valuable of all Birds to the Southern Cotton planter, and Northern farmer. Shot for "Food" in the South. Driven out of the North by the English Sparrow Pest.
We cannot spray our forests; and if the wild birds do not protect, them from insects,nothing will! If you will watch a warbler collecting theinsects out of the top of a seventy-foot forest oak, busy as a bee hour after hour, it will convince you that the birds do for the forests that which man with all his resources cannot accomplish. You will then realize that to this country every woodpecker, chickadee, titmouse, creeper and warbler is easily worth its weight in gold. The killing of any member of those groups of birds should be punished by a fine of twenty-five dollars.
The Bob-White.—And take theBob White Quail, for example, and the weeds of the farm. To kill weeds costs money—hard cash that the farmer earns by toil. Does the farmer put forth strenuous efforts to protect the bird of all birds that does most to help him keep down the weeds? Far from it! All that theaveragefarmer thinks about the quail is of killing it, for a few ounces of meat on the table.
It is fairly beyond question that of all birds that influence the fortunes of the farmers and fruit-growers of North America, the common quail, or bob white, is one of the most valuable. It stays on the farm all the year round. When insects are most numerous and busy, Bob White devotes to them his entire time. He cheerfully fights them, from sixteen to eighteen hours per day. When the insects are gone, he turns his attention to the weeds that are striving to seed down the fields for another year. Occasionally he gets a few grains of wheat that have been left on the ground by the reapers; but he doesno damage. In California, where the valley quail once were very numerous, they sometimes consumed altogether too much wheat for the good of the farmers; but outside of California I believe such occurrences are unknown.
Let us glance over the bob white's bill of fare:
Weed Seeds.—One hundred and twenty-nine different weeds have been found to contribute to the quail's bill of fare. Crops and stomachs have been found crowded with rag-weed seeds, to the number of one thousand, while others had eaten as many seeds of crab-grass. A bird shot at Pine Brook, N.J., in October, 1902, had eaten five thousand seeds of green fox-tail grass, and one killed on Christmas Day at Kinsale, Va., hadtaken about ten thousand seeds of the pig-weed. (Elizabeth A. Reed.) In Bulletin No. 21, Biological Survey, it is calculated that if in Virginia and North Carolina there are four bob whites to every square mile, and each bird consumes one ounce of seed per day, the total destruction to weed seeds from September 1st to April 30th in those states alone will be 1,341 tons.
In 1910 Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice, of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., finished and contributed to the Journal of Economic Entomology (Vol. III., No. 3) a masterful investigation of "The Food of the Bob-White." It should be in every library in this land. Mrs. Nice publishes the entire list of 129 species of weed seeds consumed by the quail,—and it looks like a rogue's gallery. Here is an astounding record, which proves once more that truth is stranger than fiction:
THE BOB-WHITE
For the Smaller Pests of the Farm, This Bird is the Most Marvelous Engine of Destruction Ever put Together of Flesh and Blood.
A few sample meals of insects.—The following are records of single individual meals of the bob white:
Of grasshoppers, 84; chinch bugs, 100; squash bugs, 12; army worm, 12; cut-worm, 12; mosquitoes, 568 in three hours; cotton boll weevil, 47; flies, 1,350; rose slugs, 1,286. Miscellaneous insects consumed by a laying hen quail, 1,532, of which 1,000 were grasshoppers; total weigh of the lot, 24.6 grams.
"F.M. Howard, of Beeville, Texas, wrote to the U.S. Bureau of Entomology, that the bob whites shot in his vicinity had their crops filled with the weevils. Another farmer reported his cotton fields full of quail, and an entire absence of weevils." Texas and Georgia papers (please copy.)
And yet, because of its few pitiful ounces of flesh, two million gunners and ten thousand lawmakers think of the quailonly as a bird that can be shot and eaten!Throughout a great portion of its former range, including New York and New Jersey, the species is surely and certainly on the verge oftotal extinction. And yet sportsmen gravely discuss the "bag limit," and "enforcement of the bag-limit law" as a means of bringing back this almost vanished species! Such folly in grown men is very trying.
To my friend, the Epicure:—The next time you regale a good appetite with blue points, terrapin stew, filet of sole and saddle of mutton, touched up here and there with the high lights of rare old sherry, rich claret and dry monopole, pause as the dead quail is laid before you, on a funeral pyre of toast, and consider this: "Here lies the charred remains of the Farmer's Ally and Friend, poor Bob White. In life he devoured 145 different kinds of bad insects, and the seeds of 129 anathema weeds. For the smaller pests of the farm, he was the mostmarvelous engine of destruction that God ever put together of flesh and blood. He was good, beautiful and true; and his small life was blameless. And here he lies, dead; snatched away from his field of labor, and destroyed, in order that I may be tempted to dine three minutes longer, after I have already eaten to satiety."
Then go on, and finish Bob White.
The Case Of The Robin.—For a long time this bird has been slaughtered in the South for food, regardless of the agricultural interests of the North. No Southern gentleman ever shoots robins, or song birds of any kind, but the negroes and poor whites do it. The worst case of recent occurrence was the slaughter in the town of Pittsboro, North Carolina.
It was in January, 1912. The Mayor of the town, Hon. Bennet Nooe, was away from home; and during a heavy fall of snow "the robins came into the town in great numbers to feed upon the berries of the cedar trees. In order that the birds might be killed without restriction, the Board of Aldermen suspended the ordinance against the firing of guns in the town, and permitted the inhabitants to kill the robins."
A disgraceful carnival of slaughter immediately followed in which "about all the male population" participated. Regarding this, Mayor Nooe later on wrote to the editor of Bird Lore as follows:
"Hearing of this, on my return, I went to the Aldermen,all of whom were guilty, and told them that they and all others who were guilty would have to be fined. Three out of the five submitted and paid up, but they insisted that the ordinance be changed to read exactly as it is written here, with the exception thatall could shootrobins in the town until the first of March; whereupon I resigned, as was stated."—(Bird Lore,XIV, 2. p. 140.)
The Mayor was quite right. The robin butchers of Pittsboro were not worthy to be governed by him.
The Meadow Larkis one of the most valuable birds that frequent farming regions. Throughout the year insects make up 73 per cent of its food, weed-seeds 12 per cent, and grain only 5 per cent. During the insect season, insects constitute 90 per cent of its food.
The Baltimore Orioleis as valuable to man as it is beautiful. Its nest is the most wonderful example of bird architecture in our land. In May insects constitute 90 per cent of this bird's food. For the entire year, insects and other animal food make 83.4 per cent and vegetable matter 16.6 per cent.
The Crow Blackbirdfeeds as follows, throughout the whole year: insects, 26.9 per cent; other animal food 3.4; corn 37.2; oats, 2.9; wheat, 4.8; other grain, 1.6; fruits, 5; weed seeds and mast 18.2! This report was based on the examination (by the Biological Survey) of 2,346 stomachs, and "the charge that the blackbird is an habitual robber of birds' nests was disproved by the examinations." (F.E.L. Beal.)
Flycatchers.—The high-water mark in insect-destruction by our birds isreached by the flycatchers,—dull-colored, modest-mannered little creatures that do their work so quietly you hardly notice them. All you see in your tree-tops is a two-foot flit or glide, now here and now there, as the leaves and high branches are combed of their insect life.
Bulletin No. 44 of the Department of Agriculture gives the residuum of an exhausting examination of 3,398 warbler stomachs, from seventeen species of birds, and the result is: 94.99 per cent of insect food,—mostly bad insects, too,—and 5.01 per cent vegetable food. What more can any forester ask of a bird?
THE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK
"The Potato-bug Bird," Greatest Enemy of the Potato Beetles From the "American Natural History"
The Sparrows.—All our sparrows are great consumers of weed seeds. Professor Beal has calculated the total quantity consumed in Iowa in one year,—in the days when sparrows were normally numerous,—at 1,750,000 pounds.
The American Goldfinchas a weed destroyer has few equals. It makes a specialty of the seeds of the members of the Order Compositae, and is especially fond of the seeds of ragweed, thistles, wild lettuce and wild sunflower. But, small and beautiful as this bird is, there are hundreds of thousands of grown men in America who would shoot it and eat it if they dared!
The Hawks And Owls.—Let no other state repeat the error that once was made in Pennsylvania when that state enacted in 1885, her now famous hawk-and-owl bounty law. In order to accomplish the wholesale destruction of her birds of prey, a law was passed providing for the payment of a bounty of fifty cents each for the scalps of hawks and owls. Immediately the slaughter began. In two years 180,000 scalps were brought in, and $90,000 were paid out for them. It was estimated that the saving to the farmers in poultry amounted to one dollar for each $1,205 paid out in bounties.
The awakening came even more swiftly than the ornithologists expected.By the end of two years from the passage of "the hawk law," the farmers found their fields and orchards thoroughly overrun by destructive rats, mice and insects, and they appealed to the legislature for the quick repeal of the law. With all possible haste this was brought about; but it was estimated by competent judges that in damages to their crops the hawk law cost the people of Pennsylvania nothing less than two million dollars.
Moral: Don't make any laws providing for the destruction of hawks and owls until you have exact knowledge, and know in advance what the results will be.
In the space at my disposal for this subject, it is impossible to treat our species of hawks and owls separately. The reader can find in the "American Natural History" fifteen pages of text, numerous illustrations and many figures elucidating this subject. Unfortunately Dr. Fisher's admirable work on "The Hawks and Owls" has long been out of print, and unobtainable. There are, however, a few observations that must be recorded here.
Each bird of prey is a balanced equation. Each one, I think without a single exception, doessomedamage, chiefly in the destruction of valuable wild birds. The value of the poultry destroyed by hawks and owls is very small in comparison with their killing of wild prey.Many of the species do not touch domestic poultry! At the same time, when a hawk of any kind, or an owl, sets to work deliberately and persistently to clean out a farmer's poultry yard, and is actually doing it, that farmer is justified in killing that bird. But, theoccasionalloss of a broiler is not to be regarded as justification for a war of extermination onallthe hawks that fly! Individual wild-animal nuisances can occasionally become so exasperating as to justify the use of the gun,—when scarecrows fail; but in all such circumstances the greatest judgment, and much forbearance also, is desirable and necessary.
The value of hawks and owls rests upon their perpetual warfare on the millions of destructive rats, mice, moles, shrews, weasels, rabbits and English sparrows that constantly prey upon what the farmer produces. On this point a few illustrations must be given. One of the most famous comes via Dr. Fisher, from one of the towers of the Smithsonian buildings, and relates to
THE BARN OWL
Wonderfully Destructive of Rats and Mice, and Almost Never Touches Birds
The Barn Owl,(Strix flammea).—Two hundred pellets consisting of bones, hair and feathers from one nesting pair of these birds were collected, and found to contain 454 skulls, of which 225 were of meadow mice, 179 of house mice, 2 of pine mice, 20 were of rats, 6 of jumping mice, 20 were from shrews, 1 was of a mole and 1 a vesper sparrow.Onebird, and 453 noxious mammals! Compare this with the record of any cat on earth. Anything that the barn owl wants from me, or from any farmer, should at once be offered to it, on a silver tray. This bird is often called the Monkey-Faced Owl, and it should be called the Farmer's-Friend Owl.
The Long-Eared Owl,(Asio wilsonianus)has practically the same kind of a record as the barn owl,—scores of mice, rats and shrewsdestroyed, and only an occasional small bird. Its nearest relative, theShort-eared Owl (A. accipitrinus) may be described in the same words.
The Great Horned Owlfills us with conflicting passions. For the long list of dead rats and mice, pocket gophers, skunks, and weasels to his credit, we think well of him, and wish his prosperity. For the song-birds, ruffed grouse, quail, other game birds, domestic poultry, squirrels, chipmunks and hares that he kills, we hate him, and would cheerfully wring his neck, wearing gauntlets. He does an unusual amount of good, and a terrible amount of harm. It is impossible to strike a balance for him, and determine with mathematical accuracy whether he should be shot or permitted to live. At all events, wheneverBubocomes up for trial, we must give the feathered devil his due.
The names "Chicken HawkorHen Hawk" as applied usually refer to theRed-ShoulderedorRed-Tailedspecies. Neither of these is really very destructive to poultry, but both are very destructive to mice, rats and other pestiferous creatures. Both are large, showy birds, not so very swift in flight, and rather easy to approach. Neither of them should be destroyed,—not even though they do, once in a great while, take a chicken or wild bird. They pay for them, four times over, by rat-killing. Mr. J. Alden Loring states that he once knew a pair of red-shouldered hawks to nest within fifty rods of a poultry farm on which there were 800 young chickens and 400 ducks, not one of which was taken. (See the American Natural History, pages 229-30.)
Hawks That Should Be Destroyed.—There are two small, fierce, daring, swift-winged hawks both of which are so very destructive that they deserve to be shot whenever possible. They areCooper's Hawk(Accipiter cooperi)and theSharp-Shinned Hawk(A. velox). They are closelyrelated, and look much alike, but the former has a rounded tail and the latter a square one. In killing them,please do not kill any other hawk by mistake; and if you do not positively recognize the bird, don't shoot.
The Goshawkis a bad one, and so is thePeregrine Falcon, orDuck Hawk. Both deserve death, but they are so rare that we need not take them into account.
Some of the hawks and owls are very destructive to song-birds, and members of the grouse family. In 159 stomachs of sharp-shinned hawks, 99 contained song-birds and woodpeckers. In 133 stomachs of Cooper's hawks, 34 contained poultry or game birds, and 52 contained other birds. The game birds included 8 quail, 1 ruffed grouse and 5 pigeons.
The Woodpeckers.[I]—These birds are the natural guardians of the trees. If we had enough of them, our forests would be fairly safe from insect pests. Of the six or seven North American species that are of the most importance to our forests, theDowny Woodpecker,(Dryobates pubescens)is accorded first rank. It is one of the smallest species. The contents of 140 stomachs consisted of 74 per cent insects, 25 per cent vegetable matter and 1 per cent sand. The insects were ants, beetles, bugs, flies, caterpillars, grasshoppers and a few spiders.
GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER
A Bird of Great Value to Orchards and Forests, now Rapidly Disappearing, Undoubtedly Through Slaughter as "Food"
The Hairy Woodpecker,(Dryobates villosus), a very close relation of the preceding species, is also small, and his food supply is as follows: insects, 68 per cent, vegetable matter 31, mineral 1.
The Golden-Winged Woodpecker,(Colaptes auratus), is the largest and handsomest of all the woodpeckers that we really see in evidence. The Pileated is one of the largest, but we never see it. This bird makes a specialty of ants, of which it devours immense numbers. Its food is 56 per cent animal matter (three-fourths of which is ants), 39 per cent is vegetable matter, and 5 per cent mineral matter.
The Red-Headed Woodpeckeris a serious fruit-eater, and many complaints have been lodged against him. Exactly one-half his food supply consists of vegetable matter, chiefly wild berries, acorns, beechnuts, and the seeds of wild shrubs and weeds. We may infer that about one-tenth of his food, in summer and fall, consists of cultivated fruit and berries. His proportion of cultivated foods is entirely too small to justify any one in destroying this species.
In view of the prevalence of insect pests in the state of New York, I have spent hours in trying to devise a practical plan for making woodpeckers about ten times more numerous than they now are. Contributions to this problem will be thankfully received. Yes; wedoput out pork fat and suet in winter, quantities of it; but I grieve to say that to-day in the Zoological Park there is not more than one woodpecker for every ten that were there twelve years ago. Where have they gone? Only one answer is possible. They have been shot and eaten, by the guerrillas of destruction.
Surely no man of intelligence needs to be told to protect woodpeckers to the utmost, and tofeed them in winter. Nail up fat pork, or large chunks of suet, on the south sides of conspicuous trees, and encourage the woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees and titmice to remain in your woods through the long and dreary winter.
The English Sparrowis a nuisance and a pest, because it drives away from the house and the orchard the house wren, bluebird, phoebe, purple martin and swallow, any one of which is more valuable to man than a thousand English sparrows. I never yet have seen one of the pest sparrows catch an insect, but Chief Forester Merkel says that he has seen one catching and eating small moths.
There is one place in the country where English sparrows have not yet come; and whenever they do appear there, they will meet a hostile reception. I shall kill every one that comes,—for the sake of retaining the wrens, catbirds, phoebes and thrushes that now literally make home happy for my family. A good way to discourage sparrows is to shoot them en masse when they are feeding on road refuse, such as the white-throated, white-crowned and other sparrows never touch. Persistent destruction of their nests will check the nuisance.
The Shore Birds.—Who is there who thinks of the shore-birds as being directly beneficial to man by reason of their food habits? I warrant not more than one man in every ten thousand! We think of them only as possible "food." The amount of actual cash value benefit that the shore-birds confer upon man through the destruction of bad things is, in comparison with the number of birds, enormous.
The Department of Agriculture never publishes and circulates anything that has already been published, no matter how valuable to the public atlarge. Our rules are different. Because I know that many of the people of our country need the information, I am going to reprint here, as an object lesson and a warning, the whole of the Biological Survey's valuable and timely circular No. 79, issued April 11, 1911, and written by Prof. W.L. McAtee. It should open the eyes of the American people to two things: the economic value of these birds, and the fact that they are everywhere far on the road toward extermination!
Our Vanishing ShorebirdsBy Prof. W.L. McAteeThe term shorebird is applied to a group of long-legged, slender-billed, and usually plainly colored birds belonging to the order Limicolae. More than sixty species of them occur in North America. True to their name they frequent the shores of all bodies of water, large and small, but many of them are equally at home on plains and prairies.Throughout the eastern United States shorebirds are fast vanishing. While formerly numerous species swarmed along the Atlantic coast and in the prairie regions, many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent. The black-bellied plover or beetlehead, which occurred along the Atlantic seaboard in great numbers years ago, is now seen only as a straggler. The golden plover, once exceedingly abundant east of the Great Plains, is now rare. Vast hordes of long-billed dowitchers formerly wintered in Louisiana; now they occur only in infrequent flocks of a half dozen or less. The Eskimo curlew within the last decade has probably been exterminated and the other curlews greatly reduced. In fact, all the larger species of shorebirds have suffered severely.So adverse to shorebirds are present conditions that the wonder is that any escape. In both fall and spring they are shot along the whole route of their migration north and south. Their habit of decoying readily and persistently, coming back in flocks to the decoys again and again, in spite of murderous volleys, greatly lessens their chances of escape.The breeding grounds of some of the species in the United States and Canada have become greatly restricted by the extension of agriculture, and their winter ranges in South America have probably been restricted in the same way.Unfortunately, shorebirds lay fewer eggs than any of the other species generally termed game birds. They deposit only three or four eggs, and hatch only one brood yearly. Nor are they in any wise immune from the great mortality known to prevail among the smaller birds. Their eggs and young are constantly preyed upon during the breeding season by crows, gulls, and jaegers, and the far northern country to which so many of them resort to nest is subject to sudden cold storms, which kill many of the young. In the more temperate climate of the United States small birds, in general, do not bring up more than one young bird for every two eggs laid. Sometimes the proportion of loss is much greater, actualcount revealing a destruction of 70 to 80 per cent of nests and eggs. Shorebirds, with sets of three or four eggs, probably do not on the average rear more than two young for each breeding pair.It is not surprising, therefore, that birds of this family, with their limited powers of reproduction, melt away under the relentless warfare waged upon them. Until recent years shorebirds have had almost no protection. Thus, the species most in need of stringent protection have really had the least. No useful birds which lay only three or four eggs should be retained on the list of game birds. The shorebirds should be relieved from persecution, and if we desire to save from extermination a majority of the species, action must be prompt.The protection of shorebirds need not be based solely on esthetic or sentimental grounds, for few groups of birds more thoroughly deserve protection from an economic standpoint. Shorebirds perform an important service by their inroads upon mosquitoes, some of which play so conspicuous a part in the dissemination of diseases. Thus, nine species are known to feed upon mosquitoes, and hundreds of the larvae or "wigglers" were found in several stomachs. Fifty-three per cent of the food of twenty-eight northern phalaropes from one locality consisted of mosquito larvae. The insects eaten include the salt-marsh mosquito (Aedes sollicitans), for the suppression of which the State of New Jersey has gone to great expense. The nine species of shorebirds known to eat mosquitoes are:Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus).Semipalmated sandpiper (Ereunetes pusillus).Wilson phalarope (Steganopus tricolor).Stilt sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus).Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus).Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata).Semipalmated plover (Aegialitis semipalmata).Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi).Least sandpiper (Pisobia minutilla).Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horse-flies. Adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the stomachs of the dowitcher, the pectoral sandpiper, the hudsonian godwit, and the killdeer. Two species of shorebirds, the killdeer and upland plover, still further befriend cattle by devouring the North American fever tick.Among other fly larvae consumed are those of the crane flies (leather-jackets) devoured by the following species:Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus).Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata).Wilson phalarope (Steganopus tricolor).Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi).Woodcock (Philohela minor).Upland plover (Bartramia longicauda).Jacksnipe (Gallinago delicata).Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus).Crane-fly larvae are frequently seriously destructive locally in grass and wheat fields. Among their numerous bird enemies, shorebirds rank high.The Killdeer Plover & The JacksnipeTWO MEMBERS OF THE GROUP OF SHORE-BIRDSThese, with 28 other species, destroy enormous numbers of locusts, grasshoppers, crane-fly larvae, mosquito larvae, army-worms, cut-worms, cotton-worms, boll-weevils, curculios, wire-worms and clover-leaf weevils. It is insane folly to shoot any birds that do such work! Many species of the shore-birds are rapidly being exterminated.Another group of insects of which the shorebirds are very fond is grasshoppers. Severe local infestations of grasshoppers, frequently involving the destruction of many acres of corn, cotton, and othercrops, are by no means exceptional. Aughey found twenty-three species of shorebirds feeding on Rocky Mountain locusts in Nebraska, some of them consuming large numbers, as shown below.9killdeer stomachs contained an average of 28 locusts each.11semipalmated plover stomachs contained an average of 38 locusts each.16mountain plover stomachs contained an average of 45 locusts each.11jacksnipe stomachs contained an average of 37 locusts each.22upland plover stomachs contained an average of 36 locusts each.10long-billed curlew stomachs contained an average of 48 locusts each.Even under ordinary conditions grasshoppers are a staple food of many members of the shorebird family, and the following species are known to feed on them:Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus).Avocet (Recurvirostra americana).Black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus).Woodcock (Philohela minor).Jacksnipe (Gallinago delicata).Dowitcher (Macrorhamphus griseus).Robin snipe (Tringa canutus).White-rumped sandpiper (Pisobia fuscicollis).Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi).Least sandpiper (Pisobia minutilla).Buff-breasted sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis).Spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularia).Long-billed curlew (Numenius americanus).Black-bellied plover (Squatarola squatarola).Golden plover (Charadrius dominicus).Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus).Semipalmated plover (Aegialitis semipalmata).Marbled godwit(Limosa fedoa).Ringed plover(Aegialitis hiaticula).Yellowlegs(Totanus flavipes).Mountain plover(Podasocys montanus).Solitary sandpiper(Helodromas solitarius).Turnstone(Arenaria interpres).Upland plover(Bartramia longicauda).Shorebirds are fond of other insect pests of forage and grain crops, including the army worm, which is known to be eaten by the killdeer and spotted sandpiper; also cutworms, among whose enemies are the avocet, woodcock, pectoral and Baird sandpipers, upland plover, and killdeer. Two caterpillar enemies of cotton, the cotton worm and the cotton cutworm, are eaten by the upland plover and killdeer. The latter bird feeds also on caterpillars of the genusPhlegethontius, which includes, the tobacco and tomato worms.The principal farm crops have many destructive beetle enemies also, and some of these are eagerly eaten by shorebirds. The boll weevil and clover-leaf weevil are eaten by the upland plover and killdeer, the rice weevil by the killdeer, the cowpea weevil by the upland plover, and the clover-root curculio by the following species of shorebirds:Northern phalarope(Lobipes lobatus).White-rumped sandpiper(Pisobia fuscicollis).Pectoral sandpiper(Pisobia maculata).Upland plover(Bartramia longicauda).Baird sandpiper(Pisobia bairdi).Killdeer(Oxyechus vociferus).The last two eat also other weevils which attack cotton, grapes and sugar beets. Bill-bugs, which often do considerable damage to corn, seem to be favorite food of some of the shorebirds. They are eaten by the Wilson phalarope, avocet, black-necked stilt, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover. They are an important element of the latter bird's diet, and no fewer than eight species of them have been found in its food.Wireworms and their adult forms, click beetles, are devoured by the northern phalarope, woodcock, jacksnipe, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover. The last three feed also on the southern corn leaf-beetle and the last two upon the grapevine colaspis. Other shorebirds that eat leaf-beetles are the Wilson phalarope and dowitcher.Crayfishes, which are a pest in rice and corn fields in the South and which injure levees, are favorite food of the black-necked stilt, and several other shorebirds feed upon them, notably the jacksnipe, robin snipe, spotted sandpiper, upland plover, and killdeer.Thus it is evident that shorebirds render important aid by devouring the enemies of farm crops and in other ways, and their services are appreciated by those who have observed the birds in the field. Thus W.A. Clark, of Corpus Christi, Tex., reports that upland plovers are industrious in following the plow and in eating the grubs that destroy garden stuff, corn, and cotton crops. H.W. Tinkham, of Fall River, Mass., says of the spotted sandpiper: "Three pairs nested in a young orchard behind my house and adjacent to my garden. I did not see them once go to the shore for food (shore about 1,500 feet away), but I did see them many times make faithful search of my garden for cutworms,spotted squash bugs, and green flies. Cutworms and cabbage worms were their special prey. After the young could fly, they still kept at work in my garden, and showed no inclination to go to the shore until about August 15th. They and a flock of quails just over the wall helped me wonderfully."In the uncultivated parts of their range also, shorebirds search out and destroy many creatures that are detrimental to man's interest. Several species prey upon the predaceous diving beetles(Dytiscidae),which are a nuisance in fish hatcheries and which destroy many insects, the natural food of fishes. The birds now known to take these beetles are:Northern phalarope(Lobipes lobatus).Dowitcher(Macrorhamphus griseus).Wilson phalarope(Steganopus tricolor).Robin snipe(Tringa canutus).Avocet(Recurvirostra americana).Pectoral sandpiper(Pisobia maculata).Black-necked stilt(Himantopus mexicanus).Red-backed sandpiper(Pelidna alpina sakhalina).Jacksnipe(Gallinago delicata).Kill deer(Oxyechus vociferus).Large numbers of marine worms of the genusNereis, which prey upon oysters, are eaten by shorebirds. These worms are common on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and are eaten by shorebirds wherever they occur. It is not uncommon to find that from 100 to 250 of them have been eaten at one meal. The birds known to feed upon them are:Northern phalarope(Lobipes lobatus).White-rumped sandpiper(Pisobia fuscicollis).Dowitcher(Macrorhamphus griseus).Stilt sandpiper(Micropalama himantopus).Red-backed sandpiper(Pelidna alpina sakhalina).Robin snipe(Tringa canutus).Purple sandpiper(Arquatella maritima).Killdeer(Oxyechus vociferus).The economic record of the shorebirds deserves nothing but praise. These birds injure no crop, but on the contrary feed upon many of the worst enemies of agriculture. It is worth recalling that their diet includes such pests as the Rocky Mountain locust and other injurious grasshoppers, the army worm, cutworms, cabbage worms, cotton worm, cotton cutworm, boll weevil, clover leaf weevil, clover root curculio, rice weevil, corn bill-bugs, wireworms, corn leaf-beetles, cucumber beetles, white grubs, and such foes of stock as the Texas fever tick, horseflies, and mosquitoes. Their warfare on crayfishes must not be overlooked, nor must we forget the more personal debt of gratitude we owe them for preying upon mosquitoes. They are the most important bird enemies of these pests known to us.Shorebirds have been hunted until only a remnant of their once vast numbers is left. Their limited powers of reproduction, coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period, make their increase slow, and peculiarly expose them to danger of extermination.In the way of protection a beginning has been made, and a continuous close season until 1915 has been established for the following birds: The killdeer, in Massachusetts and Louisiana; the upland plover, in Massachusetts, and Vermont; and the piping plover in Massachusetts. But, considering the needs and value of these birds, this modicum of protection is small indeed.The above-named species are not the only ones that should be exempt from persecution, for all the shorebirds of the United States are in great need of better protection. They should be protected, first, to save them from the danger of extermination, and, second, because of their economic importance. So great, indeed, is their economic value, that their retention on the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture.—(End of the circular.)
Our Vanishing Shorebirds
By Prof. W.L. McAtee
The term shorebird is applied to a group of long-legged, slender-billed, and usually plainly colored birds belonging to the order Limicolae. More than sixty species of them occur in North America. True to their name they frequent the shores of all bodies of water, large and small, but many of them are equally at home on plains and prairies.
Throughout the eastern United States shorebirds are fast vanishing. While formerly numerous species swarmed along the Atlantic coast and in the prairie regions, many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent. The black-bellied plover or beetlehead, which occurred along the Atlantic seaboard in great numbers years ago, is now seen only as a straggler. The golden plover, once exceedingly abundant east of the Great Plains, is now rare. Vast hordes of long-billed dowitchers formerly wintered in Louisiana; now they occur only in infrequent flocks of a half dozen or less. The Eskimo curlew within the last decade has probably been exterminated and the other curlews greatly reduced. In fact, all the larger species of shorebirds have suffered severely.
So adverse to shorebirds are present conditions that the wonder is that any escape. In both fall and spring they are shot along the whole route of their migration north and south. Their habit of decoying readily and persistently, coming back in flocks to the decoys again and again, in spite of murderous volleys, greatly lessens their chances of escape.
The breeding grounds of some of the species in the United States and Canada have become greatly restricted by the extension of agriculture, and their winter ranges in South America have probably been restricted in the same way.
Unfortunately, shorebirds lay fewer eggs than any of the other species generally termed game birds. They deposit only three or four eggs, and hatch only one brood yearly. Nor are they in any wise immune from the great mortality known to prevail among the smaller birds. Their eggs and young are constantly preyed upon during the breeding season by crows, gulls, and jaegers, and the far northern country to which so many of them resort to nest is subject to sudden cold storms, which kill many of the young. In the more temperate climate of the United States small birds, in general, do not bring up more than one young bird for every two eggs laid. Sometimes the proportion of loss is much greater, actualcount revealing a destruction of 70 to 80 per cent of nests and eggs. Shorebirds, with sets of three or four eggs, probably do not on the average rear more than two young for each breeding pair.
It is not surprising, therefore, that birds of this family, with their limited powers of reproduction, melt away under the relentless warfare waged upon them. Until recent years shorebirds have had almost no protection. Thus, the species most in need of stringent protection have really had the least. No useful birds which lay only three or four eggs should be retained on the list of game birds. The shorebirds should be relieved from persecution, and if we desire to save from extermination a majority of the species, action must be prompt.
The protection of shorebirds need not be based solely on esthetic or sentimental grounds, for few groups of birds more thoroughly deserve protection from an economic standpoint. Shorebirds perform an important service by their inroads upon mosquitoes, some of which play so conspicuous a part in the dissemination of diseases. Thus, nine species are known to feed upon mosquitoes, and hundreds of the larvae or "wigglers" were found in several stomachs. Fifty-three per cent of the food of twenty-eight northern phalaropes from one locality consisted of mosquito larvae. The insects eaten include the salt-marsh mosquito (Aedes sollicitans), for the suppression of which the State of New Jersey has gone to great expense. The nine species of shorebirds known to eat mosquitoes are:
Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horse-flies. Adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the stomachs of the dowitcher, the pectoral sandpiper, the hudsonian godwit, and the killdeer. Two species of shorebirds, the killdeer and upland plover, still further befriend cattle by devouring the North American fever tick.
Among other fly larvae consumed are those of the crane flies (leather-jackets) devoured by the following species:
Crane-fly larvae are frequently seriously destructive locally in grass and wheat fields. Among their numerous bird enemies, shorebirds rank high.
The Killdeer Plover & The Jacksnipe
TWO MEMBERS OF THE GROUP OF SHORE-BIRDS
These, with 28 other species, destroy enormous numbers of locusts, grasshoppers, crane-fly larvae, mosquito larvae, army-worms, cut-worms, cotton-worms, boll-weevils, curculios, wire-worms and clover-leaf weevils. It is insane folly to shoot any birds that do such work! Many species of the shore-birds are rapidly being exterminated.
Another group of insects of which the shorebirds are very fond is grasshoppers. Severe local infestations of grasshoppers, frequently involving the destruction of many acres of corn, cotton, and othercrops, are by no means exceptional. Aughey found twenty-three species of shorebirds feeding on Rocky Mountain locusts in Nebraska, some of them consuming large numbers, as shown below.
Even under ordinary conditions grasshoppers are a staple food of many members of the shorebird family, and the following species are known to feed on them:
Shorebirds are fond of other insect pests of forage and grain crops, including the army worm, which is known to be eaten by the killdeer and spotted sandpiper; also cutworms, among whose enemies are the avocet, woodcock, pectoral and Baird sandpipers, upland plover, and killdeer. Two caterpillar enemies of cotton, the cotton worm and the cotton cutworm, are eaten by the upland plover and killdeer. The latter bird feeds also on caterpillars of the genusPhlegethontius, which includes, the tobacco and tomato worms.
The principal farm crops have many destructive beetle enemies also, and some of these are eagerly eaten by shorebirds. The boll weevil and clover-leaf weevil are eaten by the upland plover and killdeer, the rice weevil by the killdeer, the cowpea weevil by the upland plover, and the clover-root curculio by the following species of shorebirds:
The last two eat also other weevils which attack cotton, grapes and sugar beets. Bill-bugs, which often do considerable damage to corn, seem to be favorite food of some of the shorebirds. They are eaten by the Wilson phalarope, avocet, black-necked stilt, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover. They are an important element of the latter bird's diet, and no fewer than eight species of them have been found in its food.
Wireworms and their adult forms, click beetles, are devoured by the northern phalarope, woodcock, jacksnipe, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover. The last three feed also on the southern corn leaf-beetle and the last two upon the grapevine colaspis. Other shorebirds that eat leaf-beetles are the Wilson phalarope and dowitcher.
Crayfishes, which are a pest in rice and corn fields in the South and which injure levees, are favorite food of the black-necked stilt, and several other shorebirds feed upon them, notably the jacksnipe, robin snipe, spotted sandpiper, upland plover, and killdeer.
Thus it is evident that shorebirds render important aid by devouring the enemies of farm crops and in other ways, and their services are appreciated by those who have observed the birds in the field. Thus W.A. Clark, of Corpus Christi, Tex., reports that upland plovers are industrious in following the plow and in eating the grubs that destroy garden stuff, corn, and cotton crops. H.W. Tinkham, of Fall River, Mass., says of the spotted sandpiper: "Three pairs nested in a young orchard behind my house and adjacent to my garden. I did not see them once go to the shore for food (shore about 1,500 feet away), but I did see them many times make faithful search of my garden for cutworms,spotted squash bugs, and green flies. Cutworms and cabbage worms were their special prey. After the young could fly, they still kept at work in my garden, and showed no inclination to go to the shore until about August 15th. They and a flock of quails just over the wall helped me wonderfully."
In the uncultivated parts of their range also, shorebirds search out and destroy many creatures that are detrimental to man's interest. Several species prey upon the predaceous diving beetles(Dytiscidae),which are a nuisance in fish hatcheries and which destroy many insects, the natural food of fishes. The birds now known to take these beetles are:
Large numbers of marine worms of the genusNereis, which prey upon oysters, are eaten by shorebirds. These worms are common on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and are eaten by shorebirds wherever they occur. It is not uncommon to find that from 100 to 250 of them have been eaten at one meal. The birds known to feed upon them are:
The economic record of the shorebirds deserves nothing but praise. These birds injure no crop, but on the contrary feed upon many of the worst enemies of agriculture. It is worth recalling that their diet includes such pests as the Rocky Mountain locust and other injurious grasshoppers, the army worm, cutworms, cabbage worms, cotton worm, cotton cutworm, boll weevil, clover leaf weevil, clover root curculio, rice weevil, corn bill-bugs, wireworms, corn leaf-beetles, cucumber beetles, white grubs, and such foes of stock as the Texas fever tick, horseflies, and mosquitoes. Their warfare on crayfishes must not be overlooked, nor must we forget the more personal debt of gratitude we owe them for preying upon mosquitoes. They are the most important bird enemies of these pests known to us.
Shorebirds have been hunted until only a remnant of their once vast numbers is left. Their limited powers of reproduction, coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period, make their increase slow, and peculiarly expose them to danger of extermination.
In the way of protection a beginning has been made, and a continuous close season until 1915 has been established for the following birds: The killdeer, in Massachusetts and Louisiana; the upland plover, in Massachusetts, and Vermont; and the piping plover in Massachusetts. But, considering the needs and value of these birds, this modicum of protection is small indeed.
The above-named species are not the only ones that should be exempt from persecution, for all the shorebirds of the United States are in great need of better protection. They should be protected, first, to save them from the danger of extermination, and, second, because of their economic importance. So great, indeed, is their economic value, that their retention on the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture.—(End of the circular.)
The following appeared in theZoological Society Bulletin, for January, 1909, from Richard Walter Tomalin, of Sydney, N.S.W.:
"In the subdistricts of Robertson and Kangaloon in the Illawarra district of New South Wales, what ten years ago was a waving mass of English cocksfoot and rye grass, which had been put in gradually as the dense vine scrub was felled and burnt off, is now a barren desert, and nine families out of every ten which were renting properties have been compelled to leave the district and take up other lands. This is through the grubs having eaten out the grass by the roots. Ploughing proved to be useless, as the grubs ate out the grass just the same. Whilst there recently I was informed that it took three years from the time the grubs were first seen until to-day, to accomplish this complete devastation;. in other words, three years ago the grubs began work in the beautiful country of green mountains and running streams."The birds had all been ruthlessly shot and destroyed in that district, and I was amazed at the absence of bird life. The two sub-districts I have mentioned have an area of about thirty square miles, and form a table-land about 1200 feet above sea level."
"In the subdistricts of Robertson and Kangaloon in the Illawarra district of New South Wales, what ten years ago was a waving mass of English cocksfoot and rye grass, which had been put in gradually as the dense vine scrub was felled and burnt off, is now a barren desert, and nine families out of every ten which were renting properties have been compelled to leave the district and take up other lands. This is through the grubs having eaten out the grass by the roots. Ploughing proved to be useless, as the grubs ate out the grass just the same. Whilst there recently I was informed that it took three years from the time the grubs were first seen until to-day, to accomplish this complete devastation;. in other words, three years ago the grubs began work in the beautiful country of green mountains and running streams.
"The birds had all been ruthlessly shot and destroyed in that district, and I was amazed at the absence of bird life. The two sub-districts I have mentioned have an area of about thirty square miles, and form a table-land about 1200 feet above sea level."
The same kind of common sense that teaches men to go in when it rains, and keep out of fiery furnaces, teaches us that as a business proposition it is to man's interest to protect the birds. Make them plentiful and keep them so. When we strike the birds, we hurt ourselves. The protection of our insect-eating and seed-eating birds is a cash proposition,—protect or pay.
Were I a farmer, no gun ever should be fired on my premises at any bird save the English sparrow and the three bad hawks. Any man who would kill my friend Bob White I would treat as an enemy. The man who would shoot and eat any of the song-birds, woodpeckers, or shorebirds that worked for me, I would surely molest.
Every farmer should post every foot of his lands, cultivated and not cultivated. The farmer who does not do so is his own enemy; and he needs a guardian.
At this stage of wild life extermination, it is impossible to make our bird-protection laws too strict, or too far-reaching. The remnant of our birds should be protected, with clubs and guns if necessary. All our shore birds should be accorded a ten-year close season. Don't ask the gunners whether they willagreeto it or not.Of course they will not agree to it,—never! But our duty is clear,—to go ahead anddo it!