Kingbirds protect poultry by driving away hawks; ninety-eight per cent. of their food is insects, mostly injurious sorts.
Woodpeckers destroy grubs in living trees. Phoebes catch flies, lighting on backs of cattle so as to be handy; also elm-leaf beetle, adults of canker-worms, cut-worms and gypsy.
Baltimore orioles are worth their weight in gold as destroyers of gypsy and brown-tail moths.
Rose-breasted grosbeaks cleaned out potato beetles.
Scarlet tanagers ate gypsy moths at the rate of thirty-eight per minute for eighteen consecutive minutes.
Thirty cedar waxwings will destroy ninety thousand canker-worms in a month.
So we can pile up the evidence in favour of the birds.
HOW TO ATTRACT BIRDS
Two words tell us what to do to increase bird life: provide and protect. We must provide food, water, and nesting places. We must protect from disturbance, from natural enemies, from destruction by hunters who sell the feathers.
