. Bulletin - Biological Survey. Zoology, Economic. FOOD HABITS. 31 seeds, and it has been known to eat a lima bean. It may take also Kafir corn and sorghum, and it has a decided liking 'for millet (Chcetochloa italica), a taste particularly noticeable in birds of Kan- sas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. A crop from Onaga, Ivans., con- tained 1,000 millet seeds. No significant damage to millet has been reported and the birds may secure most of this food from stubble fields. Weed Seeds as Food. Weeds appropriate the space, light, water, and food of the plants that directly or indirectly support man
. Bulletin - Biological Survey. Zoology, Economic. FOOD HABITS. 31 seeds, and it has been known to eat a lima bean. It may take also Kafir corn and sorghum, and it has a decided liking 'for millet (Chcetochloa italica), a taste particularly noticeable in birds of Kan- sas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. A crop from Onaga, Ivans., con- tained 1,000 millet seeds. No significant damage to millet has been reported and the birds may secure most of this food from stubble fields. Weed Seeds as Food. Weeds appropriate the space, light, water, and food of the plants that directly or indirectly support man. A million weeds may spring- up on a single acre, and a single plant of one of these species may mature 100,000 seeds in a season. This process, if unchecked, may produce in the spring of the third year 10,000,000,000 weeds. The problem of weed destruction is perennial in every land; indeed, soil culture may be called a never ceasing war against weeds. Of the birds that aid the farmer in this strug- gle the bobwhite, the native sparrows, and the mourning dove are the most ^ ^ efficient. They attack weeds at that $ vital stage—the seed period—hence ^ ^ their work, especially against the an- ^ ® nuals which depend on seeds for per- % petuation, is of enormous practical F 1 E R ^W *< va I n e Fig. 1.—Seed of witch, grass (Panicum The bobwhite is preeminently a capuiare). (From Bun. 38, Nevada- seed eater, per Cent of its food Agricultural Experiment Station.) for the year consisting of seeds. The bulk of these are the seeds of plants belonging to the general category of weeds. Many of them are injurious plants with which the farmer is constantly at strife; others are less noxious and some are seldom, if ever, trouble- some. Sixty-odd species are known to be eaten, and thorough obser- vations would probably raise the number to a hundred or more. The food of no other bird with which the writer is acquainted is so varied. At Marshall Hall and in Mecklenburg and Westm
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