Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1916-06-02

birds whose good deeds man should
rejoice the ornithologist said, "But the list is
longer There are other birds and many of
them, that work as hard or nearly as hard for
man those which have named. Between
70 and 40 species there is small room for choice,
but let the ten stand because the list perhaps
cannot be improved upon"
Later the scientist wanted to hedge little,
Tor he said that there were some birds of prey
which at least should have a place side by side
with the familiars Of orchard and garden to
which he had given first rank. The cause Of the
birds Of prey, however, has been pleaded before.
The barn owl, the sparrow hawk and some
others have been given their credit marks, but
lt IS to be doubted, perhaps, if anything which
can be said in behalf Of predatory which
occasionally picks up a chicken will serve to
save its life when it is caught in the act of lar
ceny Not one of the birds in the Table OF Ten
thief. Honest, wellmeaning, cheerful, and
Tor the most part neighborly, they go through
their lives working, which means eating, in order
that man more fully may reap what he has sown.
1t is admittedly probable that some close stu
dents of the habits of birds may dispute the ac-
curacy of the list it is given, but it is not
likely that anyone who has watched the daily
operations of these friends in feathers from night
hawk to chipping sparrow will be able to prove
that so much as one black mark should be entered
On the daily records of their lives.
By their appettes We sh all know them. bird
Is good or bad from the agriculturists' viewpoint
according to what and how much 1t eats. This
Is plain tale of the birds bill of fare. 1t is
lucky perhaps, for the songsters, as well as for
the tuneless ones, that the birds of the best
habits of life are we'll known by sight to all
Americans The trouble that the bird protectors
have found lies almost wholly in the fact that
the habits Of birds not as well known as
the birds themselves
1t was DR.. A. X. Fisher Of the Biological Sur
vey who named the ten most useful birds. He
tc che
Bureau of the Biological Survey of the Depart
ment of Agriculture. In the bureau are kept
the bird records. The papers in the pigeon holes
In part read like the catalogues Of seed store
and the collection lists of an entomologist One
say of the birds that seeds and insects form
the chief of their diet"
To go to the mammals for figure of speech
It has taken years of closest work and field work
to separate the sheep from the goats. In the
bird world there are many more sheep than there
goats, but the job of separation has been
hard In the little flock of best friends of the
farmer there are only two birds which, perhaps,
are not well known to all suburban dwellers The
two the killdeer plover and the yellow-billed
cuckoo. The nighthawk, which heads the list,
is, or ought to be- known to everybody. OF course
1t is not hawk at all, and the name by which
It is known in the North ern states, has hurt it.
Paraphrasing it might be said, "Give bird a
bad name and it will sho OF it." In the Southern
states the nighthawk is known as the bull-bat.
In the fall and winter it is killed ruthlessly and
to no purpose except that of so-called sport, for
1t is useless, or virtually useless as food.
Nighthawks are wholly insectivorous. They do
no damage to crops F. e. L. Beal, who has
made field studies for the Biological Survey Of
the dietary of virtually all the commoner birds,
gays OF the food of the nighthawk, True bugs,
moths, flies, grasshoppers and crickets i'm
portant elements of it's food. Several species Of
mosquitoes, including the transmtter of malaria.
are eaten. Other well-known pests consumed
by the nighthawk are Colorado potato beetles,
cucumber beetles, RICE cloverleaf and cotton
boil weevils, bill bugs bark beetles, squash bugs
and moths of the cotton worm.
The killdeer plover is of the noisy birds.
A part of it's Latin is "Vociferus, which
speaks for itself. While the killdeer ordinarily
good that it does should save it from persecu-
ton, but gunners are not apt to discriminate,
and so the kideer frequently suffers. This bird
lives in the open country. More than SO per
cent of it's food consists of animal matter The
record shows: Beetles 3706 per cent; other In
sects, as grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants bugs,
caddis flies, dragon flies and twow1nged flies,
1884 per cent, and other invertebrates as cent?
pedes, spiders, ticks, oyster worms, earthworms,
snas, crabs and other crustacea, 21.12 per cent.
Vegetable matter composes 2.28 per cent Of the
total food and is chiefly made up of weedseeds,
such as buttonweed smartweed, foxtail grass and
ssghtshade. The alfalfa weevil, new and de-