The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-06-02

IN EMINENT American ornithologst
~ Gently was asked to name the ten most
beneficial birds of the United States.
Here is his answer: Nighthawk. kill
~ 4 deer plover. chimney swift, bluebird.
w downy woodpecker. phoebe chickadee.
aM n barn swallow, purple martin and chip
NJ ping ', sparrow oou So, .. =, go
birds whose good deeds should
rejoice the ornithologst said But the list is
longer. There are other birds and many of
them, that work as hard or nearly as hard for
as those which l have named. Between
30 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,
for he said that there were some birds of prey
which at least should have 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
otners have been given their credit marks, but
IL Is to be doubted, perhaps, If anything which
can De said IN behalf Of predatory one which
occasionally picks up a chicken will serve to
save Its life when 1t is caught in the act of lar
ceny. Not one of the birds in the Table of Ten
is thief Honest wellmeanng. cheerful, and
Tor the most part neighborly, they go through
their lives working, which means eating, in order
tnat man more fully may reap what he has sown.
IL Is admittedly probable that some close stu
dents of the habits of birds may dispute the
curacy Of the list 1t is given, but 1t 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 appetites We shall know them. A bird
is good or bad from the agrculturists viewpoint
according to what and how much 1t eats. This
is plain tale of the birds bill of fare. 1t is
n0rhQ for fhn YOotAr to-
the tuneless ones. that the birds of the best
habits OF life well 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. K Fisher of the Biological Sur
vey who named the ten most useful birds. He
is in charge of economic investigations" in the
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 entomologst. One
say of the birds that seeds and insects form
the chief of their diet"
To go to the mammals for a figure of speech
1t has taken years OF closest work and field work
to separate the sheep from the goats. In the
bird world there many more sheep than there
are goats, but the job Of separation has been
hard. In the little flock of best friends of the
not well known to all suburban dwellers The
two are the killdeer plover and the yellow-billed
cuckoo. The nighthawk, which heads the list,
is, ought to be. known to everybody OF course
II 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 1t will shoot it," In the Southern
etates the nighthawk is known the bull-bat.
In the fall and winter it is killed ruthlessly and
20 no purpose except that of socalled sport for
it is useless. 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,
says of the food of the nghthawk, True bugs.
moths. flies grasshoppers and crickets are i'm
portant elements OF its food. Several species of
mosquitoes, including the transmtter of malaria,
are eaten. Other wel-known pests consumed
by the nighthawk 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 one of the noisy birds.
part OF its Latin name is "Vociferus" which
speaks for itself While the kdeer ordinarily
is accounted game bird 1t is poor eating. The
good that It does should save 1t from persecu-
tion but gunners not apt to discriminate,
and so the killdeer frequently suffers This bird
lives I'm the open country More than 80 per
cent OF its food consists of animal matter. The
record shows: Beetles, 37.06 per cent other in
sects as grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, bugs,
caddis flies, dragon flies and two-winged flies,
20 81 per cent, and other invertebrates as cent?
pedes spiders, ticks, oyster worms earthworms,
snails crabs and other crustacea, 2112 per cent.
Vegetable matter composes 22S per cent of the
total food and is chiefly made up OF weedseeds.
s,,ch as buttonweed, smartweed. foxtail grass and
niehtshade. The alfalfa weevil, new and de-