Birds Good And Bad

Rural Ufe has many pleasures, but with them are some drawbacks. It is not agteeable to find the lawn in front of your house, on which you have expended much time and money, trampled up by the intruding cattle of some well-to-do neighbor wlio owns an abundance of land, yet wishes to utilize the pasturaje of the road. Neither is it agreeable to go into your garden and find a flock of those detestable fowl, game-chickens, scratching up the flower-beds and feasting on green peas. Everybody has sooner or later been a victim to neighborhood borrowers, who never return a vehicle or au implement untii it is broken or so datnaged that they can no longer use it. But the most unmitigated nuisances which annoy those who live in the country are the selL-styled "sportsmen." Ttere are various grades of thein, but all are equally detestable. From the city chap, in nis velveteen hunting suit, with his double-barrelled breech-loader, down to the troop of small boys carrying an old musket which they flre by turns, each and.all of these self-styled sportsmen of high and low degree appear to think that they possess a divine right tö go where they please, knocking down stone walls when they wish to cross them, and banging away, right and lef t, at everything larger than a mosquito which they may see flying about. I have no patieace with these fellows, who are almost, if not quite, as bad as sheep-stealing dogs, and I wish that the farmera of the country would uuite and agree to proseeute for trespass any man coming on their lana with a gun and a game-bag. It is true that there are laws for the protection of property, and that every sportsman breaks those laws when he commits a trespass, but the great harm done by these shooters is the destruction of the various insectivorous birds, which are, without doubt, one of the great agents especially designed by Provideneeto keep in check the myiiads of insects which would, if left undisturbed, increase so rapidly as to injure growing trees and totally destroy certain kinds of vegetation. The hawk may be au exception, but the damage done by h .wks in destroying poultry and the small insectivorous bird is partially atoned by the nutnbers of field mice, reptiles and grasshoppers which they dispose of. Large owls also kill some small birds, and occasionally a chicken or two, but they do some good by destroying rats and mice, beetles and other insects. The crow is a much persecuted bird on account of his pilfering propensities in the corn-fleld, and at this season of the year one sees in every direction ingenious attempts to scare him away, which he soon becomes acquainted with, and perches with impunity upon the hat which crowns an old suit of clothes. Yet there is something to be said in favor of the crow before condemning him to general destruction, and writers have chronicled the great good he does in waging war upon the cut-worms, grub3 and other noxious insects which, if undisturbed in spring, would quite destroy the crops. In regard to the seed corn which he pulls up and eats many farmers state that they have always observed that tne young corn thus destroyed had almost riably a cut-worm or other insect preying upon its roots. This may or may beso; but this bad habit of pulling up seed corn may be easüy remedied by taning or sulph uring the seed bef ore planting. Soine farmers leave a little corn on the surface for the crovv toeat; but this most probably would only attract him to search for more. No farmer, when plowing in spring, can have failed to observe the crows and other birds following in the furrows and busily engaged in searching for grubs and cut-worms. If shot at this time they will be found filled with a masa of worms, caterpillars, grubs and other injurious larvas and insects. ïïow we must consider that these insects, if lef t undisturbed in spring, would multiply and spread in autumn to such an extent that it would be utterly impossible for man to find and destroy even a tithe of them; while, should the crows increase so as to become a nuisance, they may be much more easily discovered and killed. Farmers will abuse the bird for being occasionally seen feeding upon their crops, but seldom think of giving him credit for the hundreds of times when he is at work to save them, by devouring their enemies. A southern planter has stated that he has seen crows attaeking the maize standing in the field and upon examination the husks were found torn open and much of the unripe corn scattered on the ground: butupou looking closer every ear of corn thus injured was discovered to have been partially destroyed by the worm and the worm had been taken out and devoured by the bird. Crows are, however, very destructive to small birds, eggs, and to almost anything they can overeóme, and, upon the whole, during sutnmer and autumn are serious pests to the farmer; indeed, it is hard to estímate whether the good they do is not counterbalanced by their misehievous propensities. The swamp or red-winged blackbird does great damage to corn-üelds, but I observers state that during the spring they have always found their stomachs ülled with worms, iarvse and insects, mixed with seeds of wild plants. Wilson remarks, "As a balance agaiust the damage they do, there ia the service they perform in th& spring season, by destroying immense numbers of larva, which are of kinds most injurious to farmers." Kalm states that "after the great destruction mado among the common blackbirds for the legal rewaid of threepence per dozen, the nortliem states ia 1794 experienced a complete loss of grain and grain crops, which were devoured by insects." A southera planter once stated that the catton-boll worm, which was destroying hiscotton croy, had entirely disappeared after a visit of an immense flock of these or sorae other blackbirds, whieh, after devouring the worms, inimediately left the neighborhood. It is therefare for the farmer to judge whetb.ertb.ey do not deserve the toll they tafee f hjs crops for their spring seivigg' de. stroying his enemies, - The woodpeckers are.in general, very beneficial to the orcbïirdist and the forester, by destroving the larv;o o beetles, wbich, if ïeft undisturbed would probaMy kill the tree infested by them. The stamach of a specimen of the downy woodpecker, sometimes called sapsucker (from the erroueous impression that it sucks the sap of trees), shot in February, was filled with black ants. This bird is said to be injurious by making perforations aroumt tlie trunks and branches of orchard trees, in regular circles, probably to tasce the sap or feed on the young wood. Nuttall statea, however, that "trees thus perforated are not injured, but thrive as well or better than those imperforated." On one occasion a downy woodpecker was observed ing a number of small, rough-edged perforations in the bark of a young ash tree.and upon examining the tree when the bird had flown it wa3 found that wherever the bark had been iujured the young larva; of a wood-eating beetle had been snugly coiled underneath, and had been destroyed by the bird, thus proving conclusively to my mind that these perforationa are made for the purpose of finding insect food. The stoniach of the pileated woodpecker, or black woodcock, was found by Townsend Glover, in October to be fllled with the seeds of wild berries, with no insects whatever; its principal food, however, consista of wood-boring larvas and insects, and it has been ac cused of eating maize. In the stomach of the red-bellied woodpecker, killed in December, were found pieces of acorns, seeds and grarel, but no insects. Another shot in December contained a species of wasp, acoras, seeds, and no bark. A third, shot in May, was fllled with seeds, pieces of bark and insects, among which was an entire Maybug. The yellow-bellied woodpecker has been accused of feeding upon theyoung bark of treea, and although Nuttall states that "their principal food is insects, for which they sometimes bore the trunks of orchard trees," it seems not yet satisfactorily settled as to whether its chief food is the bark itself or the insects under the bark. A piece of bark injured by this bird, sent to the Smithsonian Institute, was certainly eaten out regularly in large square or round holes, as if for the sake of the young bark or wood itself. Dr. Trimble states, however, that the stomach of a yellow-bellied woodpecker contained two seeds, seven ants, one insect like a chinch, and of bark and sap not one trace. Another specimen conta'ned pulp of apple and one ant. Pieces of bark and wood are frequently found in the stomachs of all woodpeckers, but they have probably been merely snallowed with their insect prey, and not for the sake of nutriment. The question as to whether the yellow-bellied woodpecker does really feed upon bark can only be decided by dissecting the bird, observing the structure of the tongue, wnether it is barbed, as with other insect-eating woodpeckers, and examing the contents of its stomach at all seasons of the year. The cedar or cherry bird is undoubtedly destructivo to small fruits in their season, but in the autuina they feed upon insects, and Nuttall states that "before the ripening of their favorito fruits, the cherries and mulberries, they repay the gardener for the tithe of his erop by ridding the trees of more deadly enemies which infest them, small caterpillars, beetles and various insects then constituting their only food. For hours at a time they may be seen feeding on the all-despoiling canker-worms which infest apple and elm trees." Soit is vith the robin and other members of the thrush family. Tbese birds eat large quantities of cherries, strawberries, etc, but during the rest of the year thoy are extremely usef ui to the farmer, the forester and the horticulturist, by destroying larvse and insects which would otherwise increase and multiply, to the great injury of vegetation. That beautiful bird, the golden robin or Baltimore oriole, which has a singular hanging nest, feeds upon insects and worms. The bobolink of the north, which is called reed bird in the middle states, and rice-bird at the south, is extremely destructive to rice in Georgia and South Carolina, and to small fruit3 in the middle states, yet in the more northern states they are known partially to feed on insects and are fond of the seeds of doek, dandelion and grass. It is also asserted that they destroy canker-worms. The European sparrows, which have been introduced into our cities to destroy the worms, are not only great thieves in gardens, but they drive away other birds. An English paper states, that out of 118 sparrows killed for the sake of testing the amoutit of benefit or injury done by them, only three were found to have been living the preceding twenty-four hours on grain, beetles, grubs and larvse having been the diet of the others. Out of seventy-flve sparrows of all ages there were hardly any without insect remains in the.B. But I will not dweil longer on individual varieties of birds, but simply express the hope that every farmer will endeavor to protect them, especlally from the loafing sportsmen of cities and .town3. "If there is a race of beings on earth," says Prof. George H.. Perkins Vermont, "which should beprotected from destruction by its relations to the general economy of nature, that race is tüat of the birds. Vengeance, swift and terrible, descend upon those who will not learn that they are important, nay, even necessary, to the success of all agricultural pursuits. While we may be much aided by those insects that destroy others of their kind, we must rely chiefly on the birds, and in so doing we shall notle&ïi upon a broken reed." Mr. Florent Prevost, who collected and examined the stomachs of European birds for several years, comes to the conclusión, from his researches, that "birds are, in general, f ar more usef ui than hurtful totheagriculturist, and that the mischief done at certain periods by the graniverous species is largely compesated by the destruction of inseets they effect at other periods."