The Farmville herald. [volume] (Farmville, Va.) 1890-1934, 1903-04-10

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birds around you? Do you know any
thing Of their life, food, beauties, song.
aud their usefulness 10 mankind
That birds do Us some injury j. very
well known, but few are familiar with
the great amount Of good they do, OF
surely 50 many u them would not be
killed.
Ofall birds the woofpecker i per-
haps the most useful To W. because be
u the natural guardian Of our fruit and
forest trees Do you think that he j.
injuriug the trees when you see him
psckiug into them? he is {. but j.
hunting for the larvae II the wood
bHer, coddliug moths aud many other
insects which are buried beneath the
bark.
But what harm do these insects DO d?
The wojd-borers bore into the trunks
and branches Of trees, killing the young
buds, one often being sufficient % Iii
an entire tree. The larvae Of the cod
ding moth iujure our fruits by boring
into them and afterwards bury them
selves, wrapped IN their cocoons be-
meath the bark Of the tree.
The family food Of tie flicker one
Of the woodpeckers, is ants, as many
as three thousand having been found
in the stomach Of one bird. The ants
do great harm by taking care Of plant
lice. They take the eggs Of the lice
into their own nests in winter and care
for them, taking them when they hatch
to the leaves Of trees aud plants on
which they feed. The ants do this be-
cause the lice excrete sweet fluid
which they like, and so We say the ants
have cows.
Only one Of the woodpeckers, the
sapsucker, ever does any real harm, and
he more than eompensates Tor il by
the great number Of insects he eats.
Some other insect eating birds are
the fycatchers, orioles, hummiug birds,
tanagers, wsxwings, vircos, thrushes,
wrens, cuckoos, swallows, shrikes,
creepers and bluebirds
Are you troubled with the potato
beetle? There is no better way 10 get
rid Of them than to have some gros-
beaks living near your potato patch.
Do caterpillars build their tents in your
trees ? II so, you need some cuckoos,
orioles aud chickadees 10 eat them.
But do not some Of these birds and the
robin also eat our fruits? They do eat
some Of the earliest fruits which III
pen at a time when their appetite Is
sharpened by long continued diet Of
insects and worms. Birds prefer wild
fruit, and after it ripens seldom touch
the fruit in our orchards. But If they
should, could We not afford to give
them some Of the fruit Of the trees that
they have protected from destructive
insects?
The blue jay Is often accused Of eating
the eggs and young Of other birds but
this is very, very rare occurrence.
He is, indeed, a useful bird. eating a
great many noxious insects and grass
hoppers also. His favorite food is
mast, acorns, chestnuts, etc, and when
he can get these, he cares for little else
The majority Of the birds Of prey la
Dor night and day to destroy voracious
rodents, the enemies Of the husband
man, and yet they are prosecuted I'M
ceasingly because Of the harm done by
only few species.
Why is it that We do not have more
birds? Because Of their enemies, man,
cats, and the English sparrow. Man
kills them not only for sport but kills
Of them every year for milli-
merry purposes. Each cat, on the aver
age, is responsible for the death Of fifty
song birds a year. The English spar
rows break up the nests OF other birds
and drive them away, and Tor this rea-
son they should be killed.
Birds are also valuable to Us from an /
Intellectual and an aesthetic stand |
point, but are most valuable, as has al
ready been shown, from the economic /
standpoint II may be an easy enough /
matter TO exterminate the birds, but il
Is extremely difficult TO control the
insect pests. "For this work we have
4 vast mechanism in nature, an army
plastic almost as air, on wings power
'ul and beautiful, able to carry their
flying squadrons hundreds and even
thousands Of miles where food ab0unds
and insects threaten destruction to veg
citation"