The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-05-14
In Defense OF the Birds.

l think your article on birds in the last
WATcHMAN is little too one-sided, to
say the least. / should like to criticise it
little. You think that the value of
birds to the farmer is much over-esti-
mated. You are willing to give the bank
swallow a little credit, and l suppose all
the various species of swallows must have
the same credit, as their habits in obtain
ing their food are all the same; but there
are no other birds worth cent to the
farmer. You give long list of insects,
worms, beetles, etc., that the birds will not
eat; but what of it ? The birds eat other
insects that, if they were allowed to in
crease, might be as great depredators as
the ones you mention. There are great
many species of birds that live entirely on
insects, and l will name few of them.
First, the warblers, about fifteen or twenty
species, that are common in the state !;
the peewee, or fy-catcher family, about ten
species, that are more or less common |;
the vireos, four species; swallows, four
species, common; the woodpeckers, six or
eight species found in the state; the
wrens, cuckoos, nut-hatches, tattlers, plov.
ers and snipes, and also many sparrows,
whose food consists mostly of insects.
Also the bluebird and brown lark, mostly
insectivorous. Here is quite list that
live on insects. The thrush family also
are, in the main, an insect-eating bird.
The robins food is insects until fruits
begin to ripen. If he don't eat potato
bugs, tent caterpillars and squash bugs
it is because they are not suited to his
appetite, and there are others he likes
better. They do eat grasshoppers, and they
are often seen in the bayfield, with a
mouth full ready to carry to their young.
There is such quantity of wild raspber.
ries and other small fruits, that what the
robins eat is not missed in this section,
and our strawberries that we raise are
scarcely touched by them here; and 1
think it would cost boy dollar to shoot
one on my farm. There are three or four
species of thrushes that live mostly in
the woods-they, too, come under your
head as nuisances-that live almost en-
tirely on insects; and the common cat
bird, which is also thrush, Comes under
your ban. If you should watch the COM
mon red-eyed vireo while singing in our
shade trees, you would see that he was
continually catching insects and con-
tinually singing, hardly losing note in
the meantime. The common peewee you
may see, sitting on his perch, will
suddenly dart out and circle around, and
return to his perch after catching dozen
insects did you hear his bill snap in the
meantime?
would like to say few words for the
woodpecker. People are apt to think that
this bird lives wholly on worms that he
pecks out of rotten and more or less hard
wood. This is not 80. In the spring of
the year, about the middle of April, we first
hear of the coming of the yellow-bellied
woodpecker. He makes himself known very
quick. He likes to perch on the body OF
hollow trees and make the woods ring. He
is not pecking for worms. 1t is sort of a
sexual manifestation, as the Growing of
the cock, and nothing more. 1t is in
tended for the ear of some lady wood.
pecker that he is paying his addresses to-
Perhaps the lady is at the time pecking
some of those little round holes in live
maple, puncturing them sufficiently deep
to cause the sap to run. These are the
woodpeckers that work mischief in the
apple trees; but they are not after worms
it is either the sap, or the insects that
gather around the wounds they make in
the tree. The food of the woodpecker is
what they get on the outside bark of the
tree, think, such as spiders and others,
and on such they feed their young. 1t is
folly to believe that woodpecker, that
often has as many as nine young to brood,
depends entirely for food upon pecking
holes into trees to obtain it. Therefore,
think your raid on the woodpecker is I'M
just. The other species of woodpeckers
do not damage live trees in the least, but
like the one just mentioned, are busy in
the good work of devouring the insect
enemies of the forest trees.
The crow, think, is truly nuisance
the most 80 of any bird that wears feath
ers. If the small birds are friends of the
farmer, he is their enemy, for as far as
my observation goes (and l have been
with the birds good deaD, can say that
he destroys about seventy-fve per cent Of
the birds nests, thus preventing the in
crease of these valuable helps to the
farmer. He prowls around our shade
trees and steals away the eggs and young Of
the orioles, robins, vireos, linnets, etc.
G. S. PAINE.
Randolph, VT, April %.
COMMENT BY AGRICULTURAL EDITOR
Our friend Paine failed to notice thai