. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds . , until they bred only locally. Fig. 149. —Purple Martin, male, aboutTill. 1 /» one-half natural size. and had disappeared irom a large part of the State. The June storms of 1903-04nearly completed their extirpation from the State as breed-ers, and except in a few favored localities their boxes arenow (190(5) all taken l)y the Sparrows. The Martin is a southern bird, and can
. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds . , until they bred only locally. Fig. 149. —Purple Martin, male, aboutTill. 1 /» one-half natural size. and had disappeared irom a large part of the State. The June storms of 1903-04nearly completed their extirpation from the State as breed-ers, and except in a few favored localities their boxes arenow (190(5) all taken l)y the Sparrows. The Martin is a southern bird, and cannot long withstand. 348 USEFUL BIRDS. cold storms in the breeding season. It is also one of themost purely insectivorous of all birds, and feeds almost en-tirely on winged insects. Therefore, when the air is clearedof fl^ing insects by long, cold rains or hard frosts, it muststarve. Its note is a full-toned chirru})ing carol, musical and clear, beginning peuo-peuo-peuo. It feeds largely on some ofthe grea-test pests of the beetles and ]\Iay beetles arecaught in large numbers. John writes that a quart of theAving cases and other rejecta of thatcommon pest, the striped cucumberbeetle, were taken from a hole in aMartin box ; and Dr. Packard makes a similar flies and flies that trouble horses and cattle are takenin considerable numbers from the sides of houses and l) Otto AVidmann states, in Forest and Stream, thatthirty-two parent Martins made three thousand, two hun-dred and seventy-seven visits to their young in one day,— June 27, 1884. Everv effort should be
Size: 1973px × 1266px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherb, booksubjectbirds
