The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-07-17
MANY USEFUL BIRDS.
PEOPLE HAVE A WRONG IDEA or
THE VALUE OF THE BiPEDS.

L
mer Visitor Knew More About Them.
They Aid the Farmer Very Much.
No decent person who knows the value
| Of birds that sing, whether their song is
harsh or sweet, viii ever kill singing
| bird. Thousands of birds that are of in
estimable value to the farmer, as well as to
the town dweller who grows fruit or keeps
garden, are slaughtered annually in the
summer boarder' district near New York
by city visitors, both young and old, SIM
ply because these bird killers do not know
the value of the birds they put out of tbs
way.
Farmers boys are also guilty of destroy
ing many of their feathered friends, with
out reproach from their parents, for the
same reason - few farmers themselves
knowing, or at least recognizing, the great
amount of benefit that certain birds are
not only willing but anxious 10 confer on
the country if they are only let alone
The farmer and fruit grower should
know more about the birds that nest and
sing and fit about their premises, for then
they would be willing to defend and pro-
teet them, and in time have them back in
something like their old time numbers
and variety. How often does one see the
sauey, sweet voiced, nervous little wren
nowadays? 1t few years ago was seen
and heard everywhere, but it must be a
favored locality that it visits now. Yet
the little wren was most raveuous de-
yourer of the pestiferous cutworm of the
gardens, and did great work toward les
SEEMING the damage done by that pest.
ba hrio EttI IL -,
and the ground of thousands of codling
moths and caRker worms during a season,
yet farmers boys are permitted to rob its
nests with impunity and chase it from field
to field in efforts to kill it. The crow
blackbird has no peace, yet flock of these
birds will clear in a short time a newly
plowed field of all its hosts of destructive
Larvae that the plow has turned up.
A PLEA FOR THE CROW.
The great American crow would do the
same if it wasn't for the inevitable man
with gun who wants the crow to try il
once. Neither the blackbird nor the crow
care as much for corn as they do for grubs,
and if the farmer would scatter corn about
his field instead of putting up scarecrows
and the like those useful birds would never
pull up hill of his planting. The chances
are, anyhow, that if the farmer will take
the trouble to examine hill of young
corn that he charges the crow with pulling
up he will find that it was cut off by
grub, and that the crow was after the grub,
not the corn.
The robin, it cannot be denied, is a sore
trial TO the man who has fruit trees, but il
he will stop and think of the thousands
upon thousands of ravaging insects that
are especial enemies of his trees that the
robin destroys, both before the fruit has
ripened and for weeks after it has gone, he
will not grudge the bird the few quarts OF
cherries or berries it demands as partial
payment for its services. The same may
be said of the thrushes, cherry birds, ORR
oles, bluelays and many others of that
class. These birds never levy tribute in
the least on the grain farmer, but they do
him untold good
The climbing birds are the different va
rieties of woodpecker, and they are con-
stantly befriending growing things. When
ever wOodpeckeris heard tapping on
tree it is the death knell of the Larvae OF
some destructive insect. Yet it is not an
uncommon thing to see the very person
for whom this bird is industriousIy at
work following with his gun the flash Of
the birds red head from tree to tree until
the opportunity comes for him to send a
load of shot into the unsuspecting feath-
cred philanthropist. 1t is the pet belief
among the farmers that the woodpecker
kills the trees he works on, and that he is
working for that purpose
1t is fact that the common little sap
sucker does injure trees, but the wood
pecker never. Quite the contrary. The
white breasted nuthatch and the gray
creeper-so generally confeunded with the
sapSucker-live exclusively on tree insects, /
yet the nuthatch is in bad favor among
many farmers, as they believe it eats their
trees.
THEY HELP THE FARMER.
The meadow lark is another bird that IS /
given little peace on any ones land, for
there is mistaken notion abroad that this I
bird is a game bird. He is game in the
quality of being alert and hard to get a
shot at, but Is no more entitled to be SO I
classified than the flicker or the highholdeT
Is. The meadow lark Is a constant feeder /
on underground Larvae, and whenever he 4
is disturbed he is simply driven away from I
active work in Kidding the ground of the /
worst kind of farm pests. The bluelay 1
may be said to be indirectly an enemy to 1
the farmer as well as a friend, for it de- I
stroys largely the eggs of birds that do .
only good to the farmer.
If there is one bird that the farmer loves !
to do all in his power 20 exterminate more !
than he does the crow, unless it may be the 1
hawk. that bird is the owl. And il the \
city man has gun he viii not hesitate TO .
use it as many times during his vacation +.
ss he can on owls Or hawks. Fortunately,
the occasion that either one Of these birds
presents for the benefit OF the man with q
gun are few and far between.
The farmer can't be brought to believe
that if it were not for the owls and the
hawks his fields would be overrun and
burrowed by field mice TO such an extent
that his crops would be IN perpetual dan
ger; that owls, while out housing, feed on
nyriadS of night flying moths and beetles,
thus preventing the laying of millions
upon millions OF the eggs CT these insects,
and that they not only keep the field mice
Down, but lessen the number Of domestic
nice and rats about barns and outboases
20 an extent that a small army Of CATS
Gould not equal
As TO the hawk. the farmer remembers
hat on some occasion hawk carried OF
,ne of his chickens, and therefore the fact
hat the big bird daily kills many fed
nice, grasshoppers, snakes, lizards, beetles
md other vermin cannot be set up in its
iefense. The proportion Of hawks that Kill
chickens is no more IN number, relatively,
han Is that Of mAneatIRg tigers -Ncw
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