even though they occasionally do harm; but
they can not be allowed to increase greatly in a region without becoming
a nuisance.

In another class 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 woodpeckers,
including the flickers, cedar-birds, robins, cat-birds, thrashers, crows
and blackbirds.

The woodpeckers 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 woodpeckers are also great eaters of
scales, and the fruit grower need not begrudge the red-headed woodpecker
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 woodpecker lives largely on ants, of which he
eats immense quantities, 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 breasts 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