Quail.
Perhaps no other bird that frequents the farm pays higher prices for the grain it eats than does the Quail. Living about the hedgerows, groves, and ravines, where insect enemies gather and lurk during the greater part of the year, this bird not only seizes large numbers of these enemies daily during the summer months when they are “abroad in the land,” but all winter through it scratches among the fallen leaves and other rubbish that accumulates about its haunts seeking for hibernating insects of various kinds. Being a timid little creature, the Quail seldom leaves cover to feed openly in the fields, and therefore does but little actual harm in the way of destroying grain. In fact it only takes stray kernels that otherwise might be lost. This bird is one of the few that feeds upon that unsavory insect, the chinch-bug; and the number of this pest that occasionally are destroyed by it is really astonishing. No farmer or fruit-grower should ever kill a quail himself nor allow anyone else to hunt it on his premises.
Our domestic fowls, save ducks and geese, from which so much direct income is derived throughout the year, belong here. It would be folly on my part to assert that they are useless to the farmer. Besides furnishing eggs and meat for the table, they are great aids in keeping down a variety of noxious insects during spring, summer, and fall.
The various species of Doves or Pigeons are not, as a rule, thought of as being especially harmful, yet repeated examinations of their stomach contents would indicate that their food seldom, if ever, consists of anything but grains and various kinds of seeds along with other particles of vegetation. The good done by these birds as destroyers of weed seeds more than pays for the harm done by them as grain-eaters.
Recent careful study with reference to the food habits of Hawks and Owls carried on by the United States Department of Agriculture go to show that these birds, with but few exceptions, are the farmer’s friends rather than his enemies. It appears that the good which they accomplish in the way of destroying mice, gophers, rabbits and other small mammals along with great quantities of noxious insects far exceeds the possible harm they do by the occasional destruction of poultry and other birds. A critical examination of the actual contents of about twenty-seven hundred stomachs of these birds showed that only six of the seventy-three species found in the United States are injurious. Three of these are so rare that they need not be considered. Of the remaining three the Fish Hawk is only indirectly injurious: hence but two remain to be considered, viz., the Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks. “Omitting the six species that feed largely on poultry and game, 2,212 stomachs were examined, of which 56 per cent contained mice and other small mammals, 27 per cent insects, and only 3½ per cent poultry and game birds.”
The food habits of both the Turkey Vulture and Carrion Crow, or Black Vulture, are of such a nature that the destruction of these birds should be prohibited. In fact, in many of the states this is done by law. They live almost exclusively upon carrion or decomposing animal matter, and in this manner aid in the prevention of diseases that might result from the presence of such filth. They may, however, be the cause of indirectly spreading hog cholera where animals that have died from this disease are left unburied or unburned.
The Cuckoos are among the few birds that habitually feed upon hairy caterpillars, such as the various “tent-making” species. They also destroy large numbers of other caterpillars, and do not object to beetles and other insects which they find among the foliage of trees. Although shy birds they are frequently seen in cities, where they do their share in protecting the shade trees from the ravages of insect defoliators.
