The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-12-08

BY HELEN 1uKEss eAur2

In order to determine the harmful
or beneficial relations of birds to ag-
riculture, horticulture, and all plant
life, a remarkable work is being car
ried forward by Prof. F. E. L. Beal,
who is in charge of the Division of
Economic Ornithology of the Biolog-
ical Survey, United States Depart
ment of Agriculture at Washington,
D. c. Prof. Beal has alone examin-
ed over thirty thousand bird stom-
achs, the greatest work of the kind
ever accomplished by single man,
while his assistants have examined
an equal number, making over sixty
thousand in all. A seemingly end
less task it is, investigating with a
microscope each minute particle in
each of these thousands of stomachs,
yet all this has been accomplished in
a period Of seventeen years. When
one considers that to do this intelli-
gently and successfully requires a
thorough knowledge of the anatomy
of bugs and insects, and familiarity
with characteristics of the seeds of
both domestic and wild plants, the
labor assumes formidable proportions
to the uninitiated. To increase their
knowledge, workers in this line must
spend much time in woods, gardens,
and fields, studying hundreds of
species of insects, worms, and bugs.
The results of these investigations,
which are invaluable to science, and
of great practical importance to the
American farmer, have led to move
ment that can intelligently favor the
increase of such bird species as are
best adapted to preserve the proper
balance of nature, and reduce the
number of those that prey too great
ly on the products of orchard and
field. Ornithologists from all parts
of the country, and in many instances
special field agents who have been
engaged for the purpose, forward
great numbers of bird stomachs to
the department, and thus aid in the
practicle aud scientific research.
1t is difficult, almost impossible, to
determine what bird eats by his
actions, as he frequently goes through
all the motions of eating hearty
meal without taking thing. The
"proof of the pudding is found in
the birds stomach. If he is loaded
with garden seeds, cultivated fruits,
or beneficial insects PARASITES on
other insects), he is relegated to the
black list but if examination reveals
a goodly number of bugs, worms,
and insects that are injurious to
plant life, he is hoisted high upon
the pedestal of usefulness, and woe
betide the human who does him
bodily injury, or tries to besmirch
his character.
The contents of a birds stomach
consist of pulverized, soggy mass,
and it is necessary to separate and
study each minute particle in order
to determine to what species of fruit
or insect it belongs. Caterpillars
are sometimes recognized by their
skins, always by their jaws, and the
tiny chitinous plates that surround
the breathing holes. The presence
of ants and wasps is discovered by
the hard thorax, spiders by their
mandibles, and sometimes by their
eyes, which sparkle in the stomach
mass like rubies. Angleworms have
hard, indigestible spicules, which
project from their sides. Beetles
have fierce bony jaws, grasshoppers
hard mandibles and tiny, leg-armor
plates, and so on through the entire
insect world. The greatest difficulty
is experienced in determining the
species of fruit found in stomachs.
Usually it is crushed, and if it con-
tains no seed, the only method OF
examination available for the investi-
gators is to place particles of skin
under microscope and discover the
texture. Grain can be recognized
by the shape of the starch granules
when other methods fail.
"Most astonishing things have
been found in the stomachs of birds,
everything but diamonds" says
Prof. Beal. ga bird stomach which
had been kept in alcohol for two
years, waiting its turn to be axarnin-
ed, contained poison oak berries,
which are the favorite food of many
birds. The man who examined this
stomach was badly poisoned. Vicious
and deadly-poison spiders constitute
favorite bird food. The mere touch
of blister beetle would scorch the
flesh of human, yet in the stomach
of one king bird, fourteen of these
fiery creatures were discovered. Cat.
erpillars with singing spines, beetles
with acrid secretions that are bitter
and burning, bugs with an odor SC
fierce that a skunk is fragrant iu
comparison, and fruit bitter and rasp-
ing as quinine, and thousands oi
other obnoxious things, are consumed
greedily by the feathered throng."
While sojourning in some localities
certain species may do inestimable
damage to crops, after which they
migrate to other fields, where they
charm with their sweet music, their
good nature, and. their innocent and
harmless demeanor. For instance,
the bobolink ravages the rice fields o.
the South, annually destroying mil
lions of dollars worth of rice; then,
as if remorseful, he wings his way tc
the North, where he is thoroughly
well-behaved, where, with his sweet
voice, immaculate decorum, and his
propensity for eating bugs and other
insects injurious to crops, he earns
an enviable reputation. But after
the fashion of "Jekyl and Hyde, y
his methods change with abruptness,
and he becomes an incarnate fend
when he returns to the southern rice