Identifier: birdsintheirrela00wee (find matches)
Title: Birds in their relations to man; a manual of economic ornithology for the United States and Canada
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Weed, Clarence Moores, 1864-1947 Dearborn, Ned, 1865-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Philadelphia, London, J. B. Lippincott Company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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members ofthe Biological Survey on a farm near Washington controlledby the Survey.2 It was long ago pointed out by Forbes that many of themost important problems in economic ornithology rested atbottom upon the science of entomology. And in the diffi-cult and perplexing problems that arise in the case of manyspecies a fuller development of entomological knowledge isgreatly needed. One of the most important of these topicsis that of the relation of parasitic insects to each other andto their hosts. The discussion in this chapter has been purposely re-stricted to the development of our knowledge of the moregeneral economic relations of birds. For a history of thevarious special phases of the subject—game, eggs, feathers,guano, introduction of foreign birds—the reader is referred toDr. Palmers article in the Yearbook of the Department ofAgriculture for 1899. 1 American Naturalist, vol. xxxi. pp. 392-397. 2 See Birds of a Maryland Farm, Bulletin No. 17, Division of Bio-logical Survey.
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Photographed from life by l>r. 11. II. Shufeldt. CEDAB-BIBDS. CHAPTER 111. THE VEGETABLE FOOD OF BIRDS. A comprehensive survey of the feeding habits of birdsleads to the conclusion that the common terms vegetivorousand insectivorous have but a relative significance. Theyimply predominance in a given diet rather than an exclusiverestriction to it. We cannot indicate a single finch, grouse,or pigeon—the most exclusive of the vegetarians—and saythat it never eats insects, while on the other hand, after beingassured that swallows and flycatchers—the most persistent ofthe insect hunters—sometimes eat berries, we cannot feel jus-tified in maintaining upon purely negative evidence that anyof the so-called insectivorous birds never eats vegetable food. The vegetation eaten by birds may conveniently be con-sidered under three heads,—namely, fruits, foliage, and roots,tinder the first would be included all seeds and seed-bearingproducts of plants; they may be subdivided into seeds

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