The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1916-12-21
SIDP BIKI] MURDER
Scientists Protest Against Wan
ton Slaughter.
Farmers Fail to Appreciate t.se True
Value Of Their Feathere1 Helpers
Their Work ExtolIed as
Foes Of Insects.

St. Michaels, Md.--'If all the birds
we're destroyed the world would be
overrun with insects in from seven
to nine years." says Michelet, the
French historian.
The slaughter of the bobwhite, bet
ter known here as quail and partridge,
has ceased, as the season is owe and
the bird is about extinct. The gun
ners have been persistent and every
covey that nestled in the woods last
summe was trailed and shot this win
ter. Maryland is one of only six
states, with the District of Columbia,
which has an open season for quail.
Forty-six states realize that the bob
white is a valuable asset and protect
him from the gunner.
The biological survey has been and
is making efforts to teach the farmer
that birds are his best friends and
that without them farming would he
impossible.
There is something more than game.
ness and six ounces of delicately flaw.
Ored meat to bobwhite. DR.. Sylvester
Judd of the biological survey has held
autopsies over hundreds of dead, and
Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice of Clark
university has played detective on bob.
white living. They have discovered
that bobwhite is m~arvelously beneti-
cent to human kind. Nature has not
provided such another scourge to i'll
sects and exterminator of weed seeds.
He is nonmigratory and will be found
at his business place twelve months
of the year.
On his ordinary bill of fare will be
found ia kinds Of insects and 129 Of
weed seed. The gunner who shoots
him imagines that grain is about all
he eats, but as a matter of fact it
amounts to only ore-sixth of his food
for the year, ana this is taken not
from the standing crops or among the
sheaves at: harvest time, but from
what escapes the reaper. When grain
Is sprouting in the fields bobwhite has
other matters to attend, for late in
the spring and INNER two-thirds of
his food consists Of the grains insect
foes, which make Is per CEN on the
years total in the wild, or more than
a third in captivity. It is an import
ant list. too, for birds not Of his kind
eschew many of his favoritcs. He
likes the potato beetle, the cucumber
beetle, squash lady bug, corn bill bug,
cutworms, tobacco worms, clover wee
vii, cotton boil weevil, intoxicated
snout beetle, May beetle, plant lice.
grasshoppers, Rocky Mountain locust
and chinch bug.
The bobwhite chicks, eating "A per
cent of their weight daily, live for six
weeks on insects, and in this time
consume 10000 each. One, a week
old, ate 1926 plant lice and &c meal
worms, and was not done for the day.
Here are some single meals for
adults:
Boil weevils, ~; potato bugs, 1O1;
cfinch bugs, 100; squash bugs, ~;
army worms, IL; cutworms, -; mos
quitoes, 568-all in three hours. And
as a sample of a days work, in addi-
tion to seeds, grain and green food,
note l,35O nles and l,2S6 rose slugs,
or 5000 plant lice.
In the winter months the bobwhite
turns to weed seeds, which form more
than half his food for the year, anu
here are samples of one birds con.
sumption for one day:
Barnyard grass, $500; beggar ticks,
1,400; black mustard, $500; burdock,
500; crab grass, 1000; curled dock.
4,175; dodder, 1850; evening prim.
rose, 10000; lambs quarters, $4,000;
milkweed, no; pepper grass, 2,400;
pigweed, $4,000; plantain, 12,500; rab-
bits foot, clover, 10000; bush clover.
1900; smartweed, $3.50; white yer.
vain, 1880; water smartweed, 1000.
The years consumption b. one pair in