st
numbers as to drive out the cultivated crops. The birds which destroy
mice, moles, gophers, etc., being killed, these animals become a
nuisance and cause serious losses. If insect-destroying birds are driven
out, the farmer will be at the mercy of the insects unless he employs
troublesome and expensive methods of getting rid of them. Certain
favorable conditions cause large numbers of birds to gather in a small
region and they become a pest. Very careful observation has shown that
in nearly every case the favorite food of the birds is something which
is not valued by man, and if this food is provided, the farm grains and
fruits will not be seriously molested.

Few birds are altogether good, still fewer are altogether bad; most
species are of great benefit, even if at the same time they do some
harm. Some birds do serious damage at one season, and much good at
another. The most notable example of this is the bobolink, which in
northern wheat fields is loved no less for his merry song than for the
thousands of weed seeds and insects he destroys; while in the South he
is known as the reed-bird or rice-bird, the most dreaded of all foes to
the rice crop.

Flying down on the fields by hundreds of thousands these birds often
take almost the entire crop of a district. The yearly loss to
rice-growers from bobolinks has been estimated at two million dollars.

If crows or blackbirds are seen in large numbers about fields of grain
they are generally accused of robbing the farmer, but more often they
are busily engaged in hunting the insects that without their help would
soon have destroyed his crop; and even if they do considerable damage at
one season they often pay for it many times over.

Whether a bird is helpful or the reverse, in fact, depends entirely on
the food it eats and often even farmers who have been familiar with
birds all their lives do not know what food a bird really eats. As an
example of the misunderstanding that is often found in regard to birds,
when hawks are seen searching the fields and meadows, or owls flying
about the orchards in the evening, the farmer always supposes that his
poultry is in danger, when in reality the birds are quite as likely to
be hunting for the animals which destroy grain, produce, young trees,
and eggs of birds.

In order to correct such mistaken ideas the Department of Agriculture
has made a most careful and accurate study of the habits of birds, and
it is the results of