Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1908-07-16
Hunting and Bird Life.

worker all his life and has served his
country we'll. Nobody will begrudge
him the long holiday he is planning.
He loves life in the open and it is no
wonder that he means to turn his back
ON places most frequented by man.
Nothing that President Roosevelt has
done will give him greater fame than
his work for the safe guarding of our
national resources 1t is pity that,
by his use of his holiday, he is going
to do more to encourage the wanton
MASTERS of wealth of this land than al
most any other man could undo in
lifetime. The wild creatures of the
earth which he is going forth to slay
stand between mankind and speedy
starvation. This is truth that de-
serves to be better known than it is
now.
President Roosevelt is a discrimina-
ting hunter He does not fire his gun
whenever he sees an unclaimed bird or
animal and he takes pains to spare
the females. His voice is raised
against those who kill useful species
that are threatened with extermina
ton 1t is. Il pity that there are more
who will be fired by his example with
the love of slaughter than there are
who will have the knowledge and the
self-restraint to follow his precepts.
1t is truly strange that the scientists
who have been collecting the bones and
stufing the skins of beasts and birds
for more than a hundred years have
not taken more pains to find out what
these creatures mean to men. They
are doing that now when the lesson is
partly too late. Some beautiful and
valuable kinds, such as the passenger
pigeon which used to darken the heav-
ems in the western states, have disap-
peared The destruction of bird life
since 1888 is estimated by the best OBJ
servers at nearly 80 per cent, to be
exact at As per cent. up to 1898. If
the rest of the birds of the United
States should be killed by sudden
plague or through widespread gun
mania, naked famine would stalk
through the land the next year. The
damage inflicted on crops by insects
every year is even now estimated at a
billion dollars. That is one of the
ways of measuring the cost of hats
and the price of craftsmanship, for the
birds are the greatest enemy of insect
life. Some birds are said to be worth
their weight in gold, so great are their
services to the farmer. 1t has beer
calculated, and anybody can verify the
calculation and test the facts on which
it is based, that the birds of the set
! tied parts of the United States destroy
5000, 900 bushels of insects every day
during spring, summer and autumn
Without the birds to destroy them
many of the insects would multiply
5 with inconceivable rapidity. The!
would eat every living thing on thu
face of the continent. If the farme
fully realized this he would put bird
, houses all around his house and gard
ems and would have something inter
esting to say to the man with gun o
the boy with eggs for collection.
! But he does not believe what hal
been said. let him spend one da,
: watching one bird and see how man.
insects it eats or feeds to its nesting
Other men have done SO. Here ar
some of the figures One pair of hous
: wrens in one day fed five nestlings %
: insects, mainly large cabbage caterpil
lars. One cuckoo on its tenth day Q
life ate AZ grasshoppers, so woolly cat
i, erpillars and 80 caterpillars. On it
: twentieth day it Toasted on 43 grass
4 hoppers, 1913 cabbage caterpillars an
so woolly caperpillars, or three ouncesc
l food in one day. There is not a bare
o footed farmers boy in the countr
that could not see for himself whethe
If the birds of his neighborhood do nc
do equally we'll The estimates give
l. above are based ON much more cor
sentative average bird appetite.
!, Nor is the bird idle in winter II
V destruction of insect eggs, larvae an
! pupae is thought to be almost as effec
to i've way of diminishing the numbt
z, of the insects as his summer worl
~ Besides the soft-billed insect cate
% there are the hard-billed birds thu
is eat seeds when grown. But they &;
It more weed seeds than grain. I'll
Of doves, sparrows, Bob Whites, lark
y blackbirds and fifty other species al
" the greatest enemy of weeds in tn
ID country. Even the crow has been a
g. quilted after fair trial by the agr
I'd cultural department He destro.
Oh more insects than grain. The farm
is the gamer from his presence. Mo
w than that. Those arrant barnyal
thieves. hawks and owls, are .go'
I'd friends of man. A bounty was set {
40 them in Pennsylvania and after a We
i. and half it was estimated that
at cost the farmers $4,000, 600 in gra
that the mice, rats. field mice and g
n pliers ate. The moral Of this is 10 gi
n the birds the benefit Of the dOubt
u used to be supposed that songbirds "A
small birds that hardly made mout
re full wer.. safe whatever might be q