BIRDS’ BIG APPETITES.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 42, 24 May 1907, Page 7

BIRDS’ BIG APPETITES.

If a man could eat as much in proportion (o his size as a sparrow is able to consume he would need a whole sheep for dinner, a couple of dozen fowls for breakfast, and six turkeys for his evening meal. A treesparrow has boon known to eat 700 grass seeds in a day. Birds can and do work harder than human beings. A pair of house-martins when nesting will feed their young on an average once in twenty seconds —that is, each bird, male and female, makes 00 journeys to and fro in an hour, or [H>rluips 1,000 a day. It must be remembered that on each journey the bird has the added work of catching an insect. Even so tiny a bird as the wren has been counted to make 1.1.0 trips to and from its nest within 100 minutes, and the. prey it carried homo consisted of insects much larger and heavier than were caught by swallows.