we do not realize that Gulls and some other water birds are also beneficial as scavengers in eating refuse which, if left floating on the water, would often be cast ashore to decay. Dr. George F. Gaumer, of Yucatan, tells me that the killing of immense numbers of Herons and other littoral birds in Yucatan has been followed by an increase in human mortality among the inhabitants of the coast, which he is assured is a direct result of the destruction of birds that formerly assisted in keeping the beaches and bayous free from decaying animal matter.
Lack of space forbids an adequate treatment of this subject, but reference to the works and papers mentioned below[1] will support the statement that, if we were deprived of the services of birds, the earth would soon become uninhabitable.
Nevertheless, the feathered protectors of our farms and gardens, plains and forests, require so little encouragement from us—indeed, ask only tolerance—that we accept their services much as we do the air we breathe. We may be in debt to them past reckoning, and still be unaware of their existence.
But to appreciate the beauty of form and plumage of
- ↑ Notes on the Nature of the Food of the Birds of Nebraska, by S. Aughey; First Annual Report of the United States Entomological Commission for the Year 1877, Appendix ii, pp. 13-62. The Food of Birds, by S. A. Forbes ; Bulletin No. 3, Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, 1880, pp. 80-148. The Regulative Action of Birds upon Insect Oscillations, by S. A. Forbes, ibid., Bulletin No. 6, 1883, pp. 3-32. Economic Relations of Wisconsin Birds, by F. H. King ; Wisconsin Geological Survey, vol. i, 1882, pp. 441-610. Report on the Birds of Pennsylvania, with Special Reference to the Food Habits, based on over Four Thousand Stomach Examinations, by B. H. Warren ; Harrisburg, E. K. Meyers, State Printer, large 8vo, pp. 434, plates 100. The English Sparrow in North America, especially in its Relation to Agriculture, prepared under the Direction of C. Hart Merriam, by Walter B. Barrows ; Bulletin No. 1, Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy of the United States Department of Agricul-
