Connecticut western news., 1917-01-04
THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1917.
WHY FEED THE BIRDS?


 Societies ill it's efforts to save the birds rss,as been distributing through the papers of late suggestions and informa- Sion regarding the feeding of ~wild ,AIrds, and asking people to scatter chaff, hayseed, crumbs, scraps of meat. etc, where the birds can find them, while their natural food is covered with snow and ice.
 This, to some, may seem like small business, like child's play, but it is good work, even for those whose selfish instincts lead them to think they should do nothing that will not better their own personal condition or surround. ngs. To help the little winter birds ridge over the season of cold is not only humane but profitable, and the Audubon Association, in their news paper appeals, do not begin to tell the story.
 It pays every farmer, and even every resident of the country in actual dollars and cents to save every one of the little winter birds, although his possessions may consist of only one apple tree or a small garden, because these same little friends, if he can keep them about his place. will work in his garden all sum- mer, and even now, in the dead of winter they are destroying every cocoon they can find, which, if not destroyed. would be right on the job next spring Eo bring forth an army of caterpillers or worms to eat up your fruit or "gar. den sass.'
 All kinds of enc nies-cats, vermin, AHnters (both bipeds and ,quadrupeds) have so reduced the numbers of wild AiIds that insect pests have been, iu- ereasing at an alarming rate, and he who would raise fruit tree or even a vegetable in the garden, must, under she present conditions, be prepared to exercise eternal vigilence and wage constant warfare against the bugs, worms, beetles, grubs, weevils, mag gots, slugs, borers, aphis, lice and scale, ar got no crop.
 There was time when birds were plentiful, and the ravages of the insect world amounted to so little that no one paid any attention to them. Now it Fs difficult matter to raise anything even our elm trees are being eaten up and killed by beetles.
 ! While it is true that people are be coming more enlightened in bird lore. comparatively few realize the import .anee and value of the work done by sven the few birds that spend the win- ter with us. It is estimated by relia bte authority that from fifty to eighty. GSo per cent. of the hibernating pupae af the codling moth, the common apple worm, which causes a loss of fifteen million dollars annually, is destroyed y birds, and there are fifteen species ~f native birds known to prey upon this pest It is claimed that birds do more to check the increase of the codlinp lnath than all other natural enemies Y combined.
 ". L. McAtee, assistant at the Biolo .ricsl Survey at Washington, wrote:
 @<The importance of birds to farmer In his warfare against insects is every where recognized; indeed 1t may b' waSl said that successful agricultur would be well-nigh impossible withou their aid. AS @ destroyer of scale which are with some species of birds faxuriEe food and which many authori ties class among the most destructiv sae insects, the services of birds hay nut been appreciated, because the fact sre not generally known. Hundred of valuable orchards have been des f1oyed by scale, this most insiduous c pests. Among our winter birds tn conanon chickadee, the nuthatch an the downy woodpecker are the mos successful at gathering these minut tree pests. Altogether there have bee faunagaa be fifty seven kinds of bird sha6 feed upon scale, twenty-nine ( shern destroying one of the most de'
 ruetive species of scale in the Unite States. Thirty-six species have bee
 e2nd that feed upon the codlin ~sofh. i" From the above we learn that tl