Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1905-06-07
BIRDS AID TO FARMERS
How Some Prosecuted Species
Are Really Valuable.
GREAT DEsTRoYERs OF INSECTS.

BirdS-Numerous Caterpillars Eaten
by BIuebirds-Farmers Advised to
Build Bird Houses-vaIue of Mead
ow Larks.
The game laws Of Oklahoma offer
protection not only to game birds, but
to song and insectivorous birds, of
which many species are found In the
territory, says Chandler (Okla) cor
respondent of the Kansas City Star.
Game wardens enforce the law against
the killing OF game birds out of season.
Rarely, il ever, is there prosecution Of
persons who kill song or insectivorous
birds. Their destruction is SO common
as to cause little protest. Ignorance Of
their value to the farmer and the fruit
grower is largely responsible for this
Indifference. not only to the utility. but
the beauty of these birds. A Lincoln
county farmer who loves birds wrote
lately of his observations In Oklahoma:
1.-The meadow lark, while generally
understood to be grain eater, really
eats very little grain. Even the adult
subsists almost entirely on insects. The
writer recalls an argument with a lad
while we were plowing In wheat In
January. The winter had been very
severe and one would expect birds at
such a time to be hungry for grain
The birds were very busy working over
the ground just plowed, and my plow-
boy companion expressed his rage at
the birds, declaring that they would
ruin our stand After having made a
wager with him that the birds were not
eating the grain, the writer killed one
with his whip. Upon examination my
companion was astonished to see that
not grain of wheat had the lark eat
en-. Its craw was packed full of grub
worms and alternating weevil. with a
few weed seeds. The lark does occa-
sionally pull up a little newly sprouted
grain, but not enough to do any serious
damage.
The common bluebird, nearly al
ways the first bird to nest in Lincoln
county, is very little understood and
scarcely at all appreciated The food
of the nesting consists of beetles. cat
erpillars. grasshoppers. spiders and
slugs. The writer. while pruning an
orchard in the latter part of April. a
few years since, made notes of the
trips made by the mother bluebird |
while feeding her brood of five young. |
Between $50 in the morning and noon |
she landed at the knothole forming |
her abode in the fence post no less |
f3x-a 40 81,
with caterpillar, which was fed to |
the clamoring brood. Now. let US fig
hrT approximately wl1af This amounts
to- She fed ninety caterpilIars day |
twelve days. or 1850 of the pests to
each brood. We have caterpillars with
, us all summer, and. as the bluebird |
seldom rears less than four broods in
season, one has only to think of the |
1000 or more of these leaf eating pest |
breeding worms accounted for by each |
pair of adult bluebirds nesting around |
an orchard to realize in a measure the |
great benefit to be derived from cult
waiting the friendship of these indus
trious birds.
Every farmer should put up a lot |
of small box houses around his orchard
and garden for the accommodation of
the bluebird, make the opening small
and place boxes on fence posts or any
place not too high, and the birds will
show their appreciation.
THE food of adult woodpeckers con-
sists of insects supplemented by Der
ries; the young are fed almost entirely
on insects. The small gray woodpeck-
er is one of the most industrious of the
family He may be noticed working
carefully over the trunk of tree
Placing his head close to the bark, he
will presently select place and begin
drilling In a few minutes he will
reach the borer at work on the inside
and drive the barbed tongue into the
wood to draw the worm out. Winter
and summer he is busy, too hardy to
migrate to the south. He, with the
sociable and also useful bluejay and
the comelyt flicker, spends the winters
with us and is especially valuable to
US during the early spring. Many
farmers thoughtlessly shoot the gray
woodpecker for working in their fruit
trees; they should stop to think that
the bird does not work where there are
no worms. IL the worms were not at
work inside Of the tree the woodpecker
would not be at work on the outside
of it.
Some birds, especially bluejays.
catbirds and robins, eat great many
berries. We can well afford to supply
them. Many fruit growers in the east
plant numbers OF the old OK Heart
cherry and other trees around the out
skirts of the orchard to feed these
birds, for at the time when the insect
world is astir and multiplying most
rapidly an all wise nature has pro-
vided that these same birds are feed
Ing the young broods.
THE common house wren has been
known to feed her brood of four PAS in
sects in one day. The quail and lark,
besides eating vast numbers OF weed
seeds, destroy many chinch bugs
Mocking birds feed their young many
i