Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer (1926 edition)

FROM a purely practical point of view the most important of the relations of native birds to man are the economic. The esthetic value of birds is great—greater, indeed, than that of any other group of animals; and that this is a real and especially treasured value is not to be denied. But it is in their relation to insect and other enemies of crops that birds are most directly associated with the welfare of mankind, and their value in this particular should be made as widely known as possible.
This bulletin is one of a series designed to assist in doing this. Not all birds are beneficial, and all facts tending to show in which class each species belongs will be set forth. The useful kinds far outnumber the injurious, however, and so great is their value as insect destroyers in the United States that to them may be given the credit of being one of the greatest controlling factors in limiting the development of insect pests and in preventing many disastrous outbreaks.
In the following pages are discussed the habitat, food habits, and relation to agriculture of more than 50 species of birds common to farming sections.
Washington, D. C.
Issued February 13, 1915; revised April, 1926

By F. E. L. Beal, Late Assistant Biologist, Division of Food Habits Research, Bureau of Biological Survey .
CONTENTS
WHETHER a bird is beneficial or injurious depends almost entirely upon what it eats. In the case of species which are very abundant, or which feed to some extent on the crops of the farmer, the question of their average diet becomes one of supreme importance, and only by stomach examinations can it be satisfactorily answered. Field observations are at best but fragmentary and inconclusive and lead to no final results. Birds are often accused of eating this or that product of cultivation, when an examination of the stomachs shows the accusation to be unfounded. Accordingly, the Biological Survey has conducted for some years a systematic investigation of the food of those species which are most common about the farm and garden.