File:The economic value of birds to the state (1903) (14565669260).jpg

Identifier: cu31924055337681 (find matches)
Title: The economic value of birds to the state
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Chapman, Frank M. (Frank Michler), 1864-1945 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927
Subjects: Bird pests Beneficial birds
Publisher: Albany, J. B. Lyon Company, Printers
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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y is believed to be an impossi-bility ; but it probably can be kept in check by persistent and continuous effortunder the direction of the State ; and, in the opinion of the writer, the subject isof sufficient importance to warrant prompt action on the part of the State. TANAGERS. Family Tanagridae. Scarlet Tanager (Piranga erythromelai).— Of twenty-nine specimens exam-ined, one had eaten ants; three, three ichneumon flies, two of them Thalessa luna-tor f, the other a small species having an extent of wing of one-tenth of an inch;eight, twenty-six caterpillars ; three, six diptera, three of them tipulids; seventeen,.forty-seven beetles; three, six hemipterous insects; four, seven grasshoppers; one,a small dragon-fly ; one, a very large spider; and two, ten harvest-men. Curculios,elaters, and leaf-chaffers, some of them three-fourths of an inch long, were repre- * The English Sparrow in North America. Bull. I, Div. Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy,U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, p. 2g.
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Upper figure, CEDAR WAXWINGLower figure, RED-EYED VIREO ABOUT ^ NATURAL SIZE. ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS TO THE STATE. 53 sented among the beetles. From the stomachs of three young birds less than aweek old were taken four caterf)illars, one fly, one small grasshopper, one hemip-terous insect, together with undetermined fragments. (King.) SWALLOWS. Family Hirundinidae. Field observation will convince any ordinarily attentive person that the food ofSwallows must consist of srnall insects captured in mid-air, or perhaps in some casespicked from the tops of tall grass or weeds. This observation is borne out by anexamination of stomachs, which shows that the food consists of many small speciesof beetles which are much on the wing; many species of diptera (mosquitoes andtheir allies), with large quantities of flying ants and a few insects of similar kinds.Most of them are either injurious or annoying, and the numbers destroyed by Swal-lows are not only beyond calculation, but almost beyond im

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