Good Done by Birds

Good done by birds. These studies of the food of birds show that they help man in three ways: (1) by eating injurious insects; (2) by eating weed seeds; and (8) by eating mice and other rodents. Another way of minor importance in which the birds are use­ful is in acting as scavengers.

Harm done by insects. Among insects are found some of man's most common foes. In almost every walk of life, man has to contend with insects. The mosquito and fly carry diseases and thus cause thousands of cases of sickness and death every year.

The gardener, the fruit-grower, and the farmer are constantly fighting the insects that prey upon their crops. In the vegetable garden, the cabbage-worm attacks the cabbage; the cucumber-beetle, the vine crops; the potato-beetle, the potatoes. In the fruit­garden, the codling moth damages the apple; the currant-worm, the currant; the white grub, the strawberry. On the farm the army-worm destroys the wheat, and the root-aphis attacks the corn.

The elm-beetle and tussock-moth attack shade-trees, and the forest tent-caterpillar destroys forest-trees. Nearly all crops have a great variety of different kinds of insects that may prey upon them. One hundred and seventy-six kinds have been found preying on the apple tree alone and four hundred kinds on the oak.

The following table prepared by the United States Bureau of Entomology gives an estimate of the annual loss caused by insects in the United States: ­

Besides the tremendous loss caused directly by the insects in destroying the crops, man spends an­nually millions of dollars for spraying outfits and other means of controlling these pests. H to this be added the loss in sickness and death caused by mosquitoes and flies, the total annual toll that in­sects collect from man in the United States is about one billion dollars.

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