Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1916 — THE FARMER'S TEN BEST BIRO FRIENOS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE FARMER'S TEN BEST BIRO FRIENOS

They are the night hawk, killdeer plover, chimney swift, bluebird, downy woodpecker, phoebe,chickadee, bam swallow, purple martin and chipping sparrow

By Edward B. Clark

/’YfOTOcfifiPM mon u. s. a/OLOC/CAL JURV£Y

EMINENT American ornithologist rexi cently was asked to name the ten taost 1 beneficial birds of the United States. V I Here is his answer: Nlghthawk, killrtf' rj deer plover, chimney swift, bluebird, wLa 1 downy woodpecker, phoebe, chickadee, gSC A barn swallow, purple martin and chipJ ping sparrow. —' Having given the names of the ten 4 birds over 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 as those which I have named. Between 80 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 .a little, for 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 it is to be doubted, perhaps, if anything which can be said in behalf of a predatory one which occasionally picks up a chicken will serve to save its life when it is caught in the act of larceny. Not one of the birds in the Table of Ten is a thief. Honest, well-meaning, cheerful, and for the most part neighborly, they go through their lives working, which means eating, in order that man more fully may Heap what he has sown. It is admittedly probable that some close students of the habits of birds may dispute the accuracy of the list as it is given, but it is not likely that anyone who has watched the daily operations of these friends in feathers from nighthawk 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 ye shall know them. A bird is good or bad from the agriculturists’ viewpoint according to what and how much it eats. This is a plain tale of the birds’ bill of fare. It is lucky, perhaps, for the songsters, as well as for the tuneless ones, that the birds of the best habits of life are 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 are not as well known as the birds themselves. It was Dr. A. K.- Fisher of the Biological Survey who named the ten most useful birds. He is in charge of “economic investigations” in the Bureau of the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture. In the bureau are kept the bird records. The papers in the pigeon holes in part read like the catalogues of a seed store and the collection lists of an entomologist. One can say 4 of the birds that seeds and insects “form the chief of their diet.” To go to the mammals for a 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 are 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 are the killdeer plover and the yellow-billed cuckoo. The nlghthawk, which heads the list, is, or ought to be, known to everybody. Of course it is not a hawk at all, and the name by which it Is known in the Northern states, has hurt it. Paraphrasing it might be said, “Give a bird a bad name and it will shoot It.” In the Southern states the nlghthawk 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 It 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, says of the food of the nlghthawk, “True bugs, moths, flies, grasshoppers and crickets are important elements of its food. Several species of mosquitoes, including the transmitter of malaria, are eaten. Other well-known pests consumed by the nlghthawk are Colorado potato beetles, cucumber beetles, rice, clover-leaf fc«L_cottohboll weevils, bill bugs, bark beetles, squash- bugs and moths of the cotton worm.” The killdeer plover is one of the noisy birds. A part of its Latin name is "Vociferus,” which speaks for itself. While the killdeer ordinarily 1s accounted a game bird it is poor eating. The good that it does should save It from persecution, but gunners are not apt to discriminate, and so the killdeer frequently suffers. This bird lives in .the open country. More than 99 per cent of its food consists of animal matter. The record shows: Beetles, 37.06 per cent; other insects, as grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, bugs, caddis flies, dragon flies and two-winged flies, 89.64 per cent, and other Invertebrates as centipedes, spiders, ticks, oyster worms, earthworms, snails, crabs and other Crustacea, 21.11 T-per cent. Vegetable matter composes 2.28 per cent of the total food, and is chiefly made up of weedpeeds, such as buttonweed, smart weed, foxtail grass and nightshade. The alfalfa'weevil, a hew and de-

structlve pest, has been proved to be a favorite food for the killdeer. The chimney swift, almost always called the chimney swallow, although It Is not a swallow at all, is sometimes looked upon as a nuisance because In the summer time it Is apt to make less of a racket in the chimneys leading from bedrooms In which tired folk are trying to sleep. This swift-winged bird never lights upon the ground, a tree or a building. Its only resting place is on sooty bricks in the dark interior of a chimney or on the inner wood of some hollow tree in a wilderness that knows no chimney. All of the swift’s food Is captured on the wing. It eats thousands of mosquitoes, gnats and other noxious winged Insects. It hunts from daylight to dark, and all Its hunting is in the interest of man. The swift gathers Its nesting material while on the wing. It has a curious habit, while in flight, of nipping off the tips of dead twigs, and so quickly and neatly is the thing done that the eye barely can follow the operation. The bluebird, with its “violet of song” Is loved , wherever it Is known. Luckily bluebirds are prolific creatures, for about twenty years ago a severely cold winter made such inroads on the tribe that It was feared the birds might never come back into their own. They, came back, and now there are as many as ever and they are continuing a warfare against man's enemies with no pacificist in the land to interpose objection. The bluebird is given third place in the list of the ten most beneficent birds. Science is cruel In order to be kind. Nearly nine hundred bluebirds met death so that the scientists might prove that they were useful to man. An examination of the stomachs of the martyrs showed that 68 per cent of the food “consists of Insects and their allies, while the other 32 per cent is made up of various vegetable substances found mostly in the stomachs of birds taken In winter.” It Is a happy thing for the bluebird that the scientists are able to set It down that “so far as its vegetable food is concerned the bird is positively harmless.” The bluebird is a beauty. It is neighborly and kindly disposed. Its appealing spring-time note sounds far away, for the bluebird is a ventriloquist. It perches in a tree at the doorstep, but seemingly calls to you from the skies. The downy woodpecker is the tiniest member of the woodpecker family which spreads itself pretty well over the United States. The downy eats everything In the bug and Insect line from tiny ants to big caterpillars. Frequently these little woodpeckers are shot by orchardists because they appear to be injuring the trees. This is what Dr. Glover, an the Department of Agriculture, has said concerning this matter of suspicion: “On one occasion a downy woodpecker was observed making a number of small, roughedged perforations in the bark of a young shade tre§. Upon examining the tree when the bird had flown away, it was found' that wherever the bark had been injured the young larv&e, of the wood-eating beetles had been snugly coiled underneath and had been destroyed by the birds. The hairy woodpecker, a bigger brother of the downy, also ,1s a beneficent bird, but the lijtlo one rather outdoes the big one in the work of welldoing. ■* The phoebe is the true harbinger of spring, even if the robin and the bluebird more frequently are given the honor. The phoebe belongs to the tribe of flycatchers and It takes virtually all of its food on the wing. It cannot come north until spring comes as Its companion, because Its food does no* 4 fly about In cold weather. I have seen four young phoebes sitting side by side on the limb of a tree while the mother bird for two hours struck down quarry with which to feed them. Not a mistake did she make, and she played no favorites. Out from the limb she would dart, there would be a click of the bill and an insect tidbit ppnld be fed to one- of the fledglings. The young were fed one- after another, the mother bird apparently remembering which one had been given the last mouthful. F. E. L. Beal of the Biological Survey says all that is necessary to prove the phoebe’s case: “There are but few birds in the United States more endeared to the rural and village population than the common phoebe. Its habit of associating Itself with man and his - works, its trustful disposition and the fact that it never Is seen to prey upon any product of husbandry have rendered it almost sacred.” >-

The chickadee appealed to Ralph Waldo Emer son. The bird has a philosophy of its own and Emerson recognized it. It stays in the north country all winter, for no cold can shackle its activities nor chill its cheer. Emerson met the chickadee on a blustery winter day and wrote: Here was this atom in full breath Hurling defiance at vast death; This scrap of valor just for play Fronts the north wind in waistcoat gray. A favorite food of the chickadee consists of the eggs of the two species of tent caterpillar moths which are among the most destructive of insects. In winter it eats larvae, chrysalids and eggs of moths, varied by a few seeds. The bird’s bill of fare is made up for the main part of insects, nearly all of which are known to the farmer or fruit raiser as pests. The barn swallow and the purple grackle, cousin swallows, are familiar to all dwellers in the country. There are five other pmmon species of swallows found within the United States and all of them are of beneficent life. Swallows take all of their food, or nearly all of it, while on the wing. Virtually all of the insects which they destroy are either Injurious or annoying, and the government scientists Bay that the numbers of the pests “destroyed by swallows are not only beyond calculation, but almost beyond imagination.” Wordsworth might have asked the American cuckoo, as he did its European cousin, whether he should call It a bird or but a wandering voice. There are two fairly abundant species of cuckoos In America, the yellow-billed and the black-billed. Their habits are much alike. These two birds are ventriloquists. One hears their voices where they are not The cuckoos thread their way through the tangles of branches, gliding after the manner of ghosts. The bird eats what most other birds disdain. It has a special fondness for the great hairy destructive caterpillars, and when it finds a nest of the tent caterpillars It will not move on until the destruction of the pests and their home is complete. The cuckoo frequently Is called the rain crow. It has no place as a weather prophet, however, for it Is apt to be especially vociferous In the dryest times. In the list of the ten best birds there is only one bird of the dooryard. These little birds nest in the currant bushes, in the vines which clamber over the porch or In the hedges which bound the dooryard domain. Sparrows are known as seed eaters, and this might carry an implication that they are destroyers of grain. Some of them are, but we have the scientists as witnesses that the food habits of the chipping sparrow, the bird which comes to your doorstep for crumbs, are all good. It* has been written of it that it is “well worthy of the welcome and protection which it everywhere receives." It must not be thought because ten birds have been named as the best friends of the -farmer •that there are not scores of others whose daily work is for the good of man. The ten excel, but the others strive with them throughout their short lives to work as well as In them lies for the good of man who too often, misunderstanding their intentions, becomes their persecutor.