Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 37

GRAND TOTAL $5,551,000,000 $795,100,000

The millions of the insect world are upon us. The birds fight them for us, and when the birds are numerous and have nestlings to feed, the number of insects they consume is enormous. They require absolutely nothing at our hands save _the privilege of being let alone while they work for us!_ In fighting the insects, our only allies in nature are the songbirds, woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, sh.o.r.e-birds, swallows and martins, certain hawks, moles, shrews, bats, and a few other living creatures. All these wage war at their own expense. The farmers might just as well lose $8,250,000 through a short apple crop as to pay out that sum in labor and materials in spraying operations. And yet, fools that we are, we go on slaughtering our friends, and allowing others to slaughter them, under the same brand of fatuous folly that leads the people of Italy to build anew on the smoking sides of Vesuvius, after a dozen generations have been swept away by fire and ashes.

In the next chapter we will consider the work of our friends, The Birds.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS

To-day, from Halifax to Los Angeles, and from Key West to Victoria, a deadly contest is being waged. The fruit-growers, farmers, forest owners and "park people" are engaged in a struggle with the insect hordes for the possession of the trees, shrubs and crops. Go out into the open, with your eyes open, and you will see it for yourself. Millions of dollars are being expended in it. Look at this exhibit of what is going on around me, at this very moment,--July 19, 1912:

The bag insects, in thousands, are devouring the leaves of locust and maple trees.

The elm beetles are trying to devour the elms; and spraying is in progress.

The hickory-bark borers are slaughtering the hickories; and even some park people are neglecting to take the measures necessary to stop it!

The tent caterpillars are being burned.

The aphis (scale insects) are devouring the tops of the _white potatoes_ in the New York University school garden, just as the potato beetle does.

The codling moth larvae are already at work on the apples.

The leaves affected by the witch hazel gall fly are being cut off and burned.

These are merely the most conspicuous of the insect pests that I now see daily. I am not counting those of second or third-rate importance.

Some of these hordes are being fought with poisonous sprays, some are being killed by hand, and some are being ignored.

In view of the known value of the remaining trees of our country, each woodp.e.c.k.e.r in the United States is worth twenty dollars in cash. Each nuthatch, creeper and chickadee is worth from five to ten dollars, according to local circ.u.mstances. You might just as well cut down four twenty-inch trees and let them lie and decay, as to permit one woodp.e.c.k.e.r to be killed and eaten by an Italian in the North, or a negro in the South. The downy woodp.e.c.k.e.r is the relentless enemy of the codling moth, an insect that annually inflicts upon our apple crop damages estimated by the experts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at twelve million dollars!

Now, is a federal strong-arm migratory bird law needed for such birds or not? Let the owners of orchards and forests make answer.

THE CASE OF THE CODLING MOTH AND CURCULIO.--The codling moth and curculio are twin terrors to apple-growers, partly because of their deadly destructiveness, and partly because man is so weak in resisting them. The annual cost of the fight made against them, in sprays and labor and apparatus, has been estimated at $8,250,000. And what do the birds do to the codling moth,--when there are any birds left alive to operate? The testimony comes from all over the United States, and it is worth while to cite it briefly as a fair sample of the work of the birds upon this particularly deadly pest. These facts and quotations are from the "Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture," for 1911.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWNY WOODp.e.c.k.e.r]

_The Downy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r_ is the champion tree-protector, and also one of the greatest enemies of the codling moth. When man is quite unable to find the hidden larvae, Downy locates it every time, and digs it out. It extracts worms from young apples so skillfully that often the fruit is not permanently injured. Mr. F.M. Webster reports that the labors of this bird "afford actual and immediate relief to the infected fruit."

Testimony in favor of the downy woodp.e.c.k.e.r has come from New York, New Jersey, Texas and California, "and no fewer than twenty larvae have been taken from a single stomach."

Take the _Red-Shafted Flicker_ vs. the codling moth. Mr. A.P. Martin of Petaluma, Cal., states that during the early spring months (of 1890) they were seen by hundreds in his orchard, industriously examining the trunks and larger limbs of the fruit trees; and he also found great numbers of them around sheds where he stored his winter apples and pears. As the result of several hours' search, Mr. Martin found only one worm, and this one escaped only by accident, for several of the birds had been within a quarter of an inch of it. "So eager are woodp.e.c.k.e.rs in search, of codling moths that they have often been known to riddle the s.h.i.+ngle traps and paper bands which are placed to attract the larvae about to spin coc.o.o.ns."

Behold the array of birds that devour the larvae of the codling moth to an important extent.

BIRDS THAT DEVOUR THE CODLING MOTH

Downy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Dryobates p.u.b.escens_).

Hairy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Dryobates villosus_).

Texan Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Dryobates scalaris bairdi_).

Red-Headed Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_).

Red-Shafted Flicker (_Colaptes cafer collaris_).

Pileated Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Phloeotomus pileatus_).

Kingbird (_Tyrra.n.u.s tyrra.n.u.s_).

Western Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher (_Empidonax difficilis_).

Blue Jay (_Cyanocitta cristata_).

California Jay (_Aphelocoma californica_).

Magpie (_Pica pica hudsonia_).

Crow Blackbird (_Quiscalus quiscula_).

Brewer Blackbird (_Euphagus cyanocephalus_).

Bullock Oriole (_Icterus bullocki_).

English Sparrow (_Pa.s.ser domesticus_).

Chipping Sparrow (_Spizella pa.s.serina_).

California Towhee (_Pipilo crissalis_).

Cardinal (_Cardinalis cardinalis_).

Black Headed Grosbeak (_Zamelodia melanocephala_).

Lazuli Bunting (_Pa.s.serina cyanea_).

Barn Swallow (_Hirundo erythrogastra_).

Western Warbling Vireo (_Vireosylva gilva swainsoni_).

Summer, or Yellow Warbler (_Dendroica aestiva_).

Lutescent Warbler (_Vermivora celata lutescens_).

Brown Creeper (_Certhia familiaris americana_).

White-Breasted Nuthatch (_Sitta carolinensis_).

Black-Capped Chickadee (_Penthestes atricapillus_).

Plain t.i.tmouse (_Baeolophus inornatus_).

Carolina Chickadee (_Penthestes carolinensis_).

Mountain Chickadee (_Penthestes gambeli_).

California Bush t.i.t (_Psaltriparus minimus californicus_).

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet (_Regulus calendula_).

Robin (_Planesticus migratorius_).

Bluebird (_Sialia sialis_).

In all, says Mr. W.L. McAtee, thirty-six species of birds of thirteen families help man in his irrepressible conflict against his deadly enemy, the codling moth. "In some places they destroy from sixty-six to eighty-five per cent of the hibernating larvae."

Now, are the farmers of this country content to let the Italians of the North, and the negroes of the South, shoot those birds for food, and devour them? What is the great American farmer going to _do_ about this matter? What he should do is to write and urge his members of Congress to work for and vote for the federal migratory bird bill.

THE COTTON BOLL WEEVIL.--Let us take one other concrete case. The cotton boll weevil invaded the United States from Mexico in 1894. Ten years later it was costing the cotton planters an annual loss estimated at fifteen million dollars per year. Later on that loss was estimated at twenty million dollars. The cotton boll weevil strikes at the heart of the industry by destroying the boll of the cotton plant. While the total loss never can be definitely ascertained, we know that it has amounted to many millions of dollars. The figure given above has been widely quoted, and so far as I am aware, never disputed.

Fortunately we have at hand a government publication on this subject which gives some pertinent facts regarding the bird enemies of the cotton boll weevil. It is Circular No. 57 of the Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture. Any one can obtain it by addressing that Department. I quote the most important portions of this valuable doc.u.ment: