s where sparrows fed during the winter. The ground
was literally black with the seeds in the spring but on examining them
it was found that nearly all had been cracked and the kernels eaten. A
search was made for seeds of various weeds but not more than half a
dozen could be found, while many thousands of empty seed-pods showed how
the birds had lived during the winter.

In no place are birds more important than in the forests, where they
save hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuable timber each
year. In forests there can be no rotation of crops and no cultivation,
and spraying, which keeps down the insect pests in the orchard, is
impossible here because of the expense. It would not pay to spray two or
three times a year a crop of timber that requires a lifetime to grow. So
in the forests the owner must depend entirely on birds for his
protection. How great the destruction of our forests would be is shown
by the fact that the damage at present is estimated at $100,000,000, in
spite of the fact that a vast army of birds is working tirelessly,
summer and winter, to devour the insects! The debt of the forester to
the birds can hardly be estimated.

A full variety of birds will thoroughly protect a farm and orchard. The
sparrows will destroy the weed seeds; the hawks and kites, flying by
day, will catch the meadow mice and other small mammals, and the owls
will pounce on those that venture forth at night. Of the insect-eating
birds, the larks, wrens, thrushes and sparrows search the ground for
worms, eggs and insects under leaves and logs everywhere. The
nuthatches, vireos, warblers and creepers search every part of the tree,
while the woodpeckers tap beneath the bark for grubs and worms. The
fly-catching birds catch their insect food on the wing among the trees
and branches, and, last of all, the swallows skim high in the air and
catch the few insects that rise high above the tree-tops.

Thus each family has its part of the work and the good they do is almost
too great to calculate. Without this check it would be impossible for
any green thing to flourish. So vast an amount of food is required to
feed the great army of insects that the task would be impossible in any
other way.

A brief description of some of the common birds and their food habits is
given here that farmers may know their friends, and that people
everywhere may learn to protect the useful birds and drive out the few
that do the mischief.

A