Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1916 — Common American Birds [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Common American Birds

Robin (Planesticus migratorius) • .Length, ten inches. r . 'Range: Breeds in the United States (except the gulf states), Canada, Alaska and Mexico; winters in most of the United States and south to Guatemala. Habits and economic status: In the North and some parts of the West the robin Is among the most cherished of our native birds. Should it ever become rare where now common, its joyous summer song .and familiar presence will be sadly missed in many a homestead. The robin is an omnivorous feeder, and its food Includes many orders of Insects, with no very pronounced preference for any. It is very fond of earthworms, but its real economic status is determined by .the vegetable food, which amounts to about 58 per cent of all. The principal item is fruit, which forms more than 51 per cent of the total food. The fact that in the examination of over 1,200 stomachs the percentage of wild fruit’ was found to be five times that of the cultivated varieties suggests that berry-bearing shrubs, if planted near the orchard, will serve

to protect more valuable fruits. In California in certain years it has been possible to save the olive crop from hungry robins only by the most strenuous exertions and considerable expense. The bird’s general usefulness is such, however, that all reasonable means of protecting orchard fruit should be tried before killing the birds.

Crow Blackbird (Qulscalus quiscula) Length, twelve inches. Shorter by at least three inches than the other grackles with trough-shaped tails. Black, with purplish, bluish, and bronze reflections. Range: Breeds throughout the United States west to Texas, Colorado, and Montana, and in southern Canada; winters in the southern half of the breeding range. Habits and economic status: This blackbird is a beautiful species, and is well known from its habit of "congregating in city parks and nesting there year after year. Like other species which habitually assemble in great flocks, it is capable of inflicting much damage on any crop it attacks, and where it is harmful a judicious reduction of numbers is probably sound policy. It shares with the crow and blue jay the evil habit of pillaging the nests of small birds of eggs and young. Nevertheless it does much good by de-

stroying insect pests, especially white grubs, weevils, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. Among the caterpillars are army worms and other cutworms. When blackbirds gather in large flocks, as in the Mississippi valley, they may greatly damage grain, either when first sown or when in the milk. Jn winter they subsist mostly on weed seed and waste grain..

Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) Length, about eleven inches. Brownish red above, heavily streaked wltife black below. Range: Breeds from the gulf states to southern Canada and west to Colorado, Wyoming and Montana; winters in the southern half of the eastern United States. *■ Habits and economic status: The brown thrasher Is more retiring than either the mocking bird or catbird, but like them is a splendid singer.

interesting inform mation about them supplied by the Bureau of Biological Survey of the States of

Not infrequently, indeed, its song is taken for that of its more famed cousin, the mocking bird. It is partial to thickets and gets much of its food from the ground. Its search for this is usually accompanied by much scratching and scattering of leaves; whence its common name. Its call note is a sharp sound like the smacking of lips, which Is useful in identifying this long-tailed, thicket-haunting bird, which dbes not much relish close scrutiny. The brown thrasher is not so fond of fruit as the catbird and mocker, but devours a much larger percentage of animal food. Beetles form one-half of the animal food, grasshoppers and crickets one-fifth, caterpillars, including cutworms, somewhat less than one-fifth, and bugs, spiders, and millipeds comprise most of the remainder. The brown thrash-

er feeds on such coleopterous pests as wireworms, May beetles, rice weevils, rose beetles, and figeaters. By its destruction of these and other insects, which constitute more than 60 per cent of its food, the thrasher much more than compensates for that portion (about one-tenth) of its diet derived from cultivated crops. -

Bobwhite (Collnus vlrglnianus) Length, ten Inches. Known everywhere by the clear whistle that suggests its name. Range: Resident •«in the United States east of the plains; introduced in many places in the West. Habits and economic status: The bobwhite is loved by every dweller <in the country and is better known to more hunters in the United States than any other game bird. It is no less appreciated on the table than in the fluid, and in many states has unquestionably been hunted too closely. Fortunately it seems to be practicable to propagate the bird in captivity, and much is to be hoped for in this direction. Half the food of this quail consists of weed seeds, almost a fourth of grain, and about a tenth of wild fruits. Although thus eating grain, the bird gets most of it from stub-

ble. Fifteen per cent of the bobwhite’s food is composed of insects, including several of the most serious pests of agriculture. It feeds freely upon Colorado potato beetles and chinch bugs; it devours also cucumber beetles, wlreworms, billbugs, clover-leaf ■weevils, cotton-boM weevils, army worms, bollworms, cutworms, and Rocky mountain locusts. Take it all in all, bobwhite is very useful to the farmer, and while it may not be necessary to remove it from the list of game birds every farmer should see that his own farm is not depleted by eager sportsmen. <