Birds and Human Health

Birds and human health. It is now well known that some insects carry diseases and thus are the in­direct causes of sickness and death. The house-fly and mosquito are the two most common and deadly insects in this way. The house-fly carries typhoid fever, tuberculosis, children's diseases of the alimen­tary canal, and many other diseases.

Mosquitoes carry malaria and yellow fever, and are the only means known by which these diseases are carried from one person to another. And even in the north­ern sections of the country where these diseases are not found, mosquitoes are a great pest and prevent one from enjoying outdoors at the best time of the year. The food habits of birds may be studied with special interest in this connection to see to what ex­tent they feed on flies and mosquitoes.

The reports of the Bureau of Biological Survey show that there are a number of birds known to eat these insects. Nine species of shore-birds are known to feed on the wigglers of mosquitoes. In a killdeer's stomach, hundreds of larvee of the salt-marsh mos­quito have been found. Fifty-three per cent of the food of twenty-eight northern phalaropes from one locality consisted of mosquito larvee.

The following land-birds are known to feed on the adult mosquito: nighthawk, purple martin, yellow­throated vireo, whip-poor-will, chimney swift, wood pewee, pheebe, kingbird, bank swallow, cliff swallow, tree swallow, barn swallow, violet-green swallow, wren-tit, and summer warbler. Five hundred mos­quitoes are said to have been found in the stomach of a single nighthawk.

Among the species eaten by this bird is the kind that carries malaria, so that, as we watch a nighthawk soaring around at twilight, we may believe it quite possible that it has been the means of saving some human life by destroying malaria-laden mosquitoes which might otherwise have bitten and infected a human being, thus caus­ing sickness or death.

A bob-white kept in captivity ate 568 mosquitoes in two hours.

The following birds have been known to feed on house-flies: wood pewee, phcebe, yellow-throated vireo, martin, bob-white, and horned lark.

A bob-white kept in captivity ate 1350 flies in one day. Mr. E. H. Baynes, in his "Wild Bird Guests," writes:­

The pair of phoebes on our piazza, with two pairs of tree swallows which nest in boxes in the garden, and a pair of barn swallows in the barn, keep our house practically free from flies and mosquitoes all summer long.

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