Woodpeckers belong to another class of birds that are very useful to us. How often have we heard them hammering upon a dead tree as they drill holes in search of the worms and beetles that are hidden under the bark or in the heart of the wood. It has long been the habit of hunters to shoot woodpeckers just for sport, although no one eats them nor are they known to do any harm. With a decrease in their numbers there has been an increase in insect pests which are now destroying so many trees in all parts of our country. The woodpeckers in the Sierra Nevada Mountains are worth almost their weight in gold, for they destroy millions of beetles that are killing the great sugar pines and yellow pines. Here and there you will find a tree, attacked by the beetles, from which the woodpeckers have almost stripped the bark in their search for these insects.
The food of the martins and swallows is wholly made up of insects. We have all seen them in their graceful flight and have noticed how they seize their insect prey while on the wing. The martins are of little value for food, and yet, in some parts of our country they have become almost extinct because of the pursuit of them by pot hunters.
Finley & Bohlman
A barn swallow.
The shore birds form a group of very great value. They include those long-legged birds with slender bills which are found, usually along the shores of the ocean and of lakes and small bodies of water, but sometimes in the interior away from the water. The food of these birds is almost wholly insects, which are harmful in various ways. Among these insects are grasshoppers, army worms, cutworms, cabbage worms, grubs, horseflies, and mosquitoes.
Finley & Bohlman
A least sandpiper or snipe, one of the shore birds.
So cruelly and relentlessly have the shore birds been pursued by men who call themselves "sportsmen;" that many species are nearly extinct. We hope that the Migratory Bird Law will be enforced and that with the protection this gives them they will again increase and fill their old haunts. But we must ever be on the watch, for there will still be greedy hunters trying to evade the law until all our boys grow up with love and appreciation for the birds. The killdeer, snipe, and other plovers, whose habits make them the most interesting of the shore birds, especially need our protection. We have all seen these birds in our walks along the shore. Small and delicate their bodies are; each one would make scarcely a mouthful, and yet the pot hunters have seemed determined to kill them all.