File:How to attract the birds - and other talks about bird neighbors (1903) (14565275608).jpg

Identifier: howtoattractbird00bla (find matches)
Title: How to attract the birds : and other talks about bird neighbors
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Blanchan, Neltje, 1865-1918
Subjects: Birds Bird attracting
Publisher: New York : Doubleday Page
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ngly, while that gigantic fraud— the house cat—is petted and fed and given asecure shelter from which it may emerge to spreaddestruction among the feathered tribe. The differ-ence between the two can be summed up in a fewwords: Only three or four birds of prey hunt birdswhen they can procure rodents for food, while a catseldom touches mice if she can procure birds oryoung poultry. A cat has been known to killtwenty young chickens in a day, which is more thanmost raptorial birds destroy in a lifetime. Hawks and owls admirably supplement eachothers work. One group hunts while the othersleeps. The owls usually remain in a chosen neigh-borhood through the winter, while the hawks gosouth. We are never left unprotected. In con-sideration of the overwhelming amount of goodthese unthanked friends do us, can we not afford tobe to their faults a little blind? A VOLUNTEER HEALTH DEPARTMENT In the southern states, Cuba, and the adjacentislands, the great dark vultures that go sailing high 200
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What Birds Do for Us in air express the very poetry of motion ; but surelytheir terrestrial habits have to do with the very proseof existence, for self-constituted health officers arethey, scavengers of the fields, that rid them of pu-trefying animal matter. Instead of burying a deadchicken, dog, cat, or even a large domestic animal,the easy-going Negro lets it lie .where it dropped,knowing full well that before it becomes offensivethe vultures will have begun to feed upon it. Insome of the smaller cities the vultures mingle freelywith the loungers about the market-place, gorgingupon the refuse thrown about for the only streetcleaners in sight. Where robins, woodpeckers, andmany species of small song-birds are so lightly re-garded as to be killed in shocking quantities andnot always for food, the vultures are carefully pro-tected by the Southern people, who, not yet realiz-ing the greater value of insectivorous birds to thefarmer, do nevertheless know enough to throw thearm of the law

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