THE STING OF WINTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 189, 12 August 1931, Page 12

THE STING OF WINTER

AUGUST IS BIRD MONTH. Professor Bryant, of the University of California, has estimated that in the Sacramento Valley one species of birds (meadowlarks) consume 193 tons of insects daily in feeding their young during the nesting season. Tf it was not for the toll exacted in insect life by the annual bird-nesting (as well as at other times in the year) farmers would have to face much greater insect damage. The New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society, in asking the public to observe August as Bird Month, points out that the nesting season follows August closely. The worse. the birds are faring in this end-of-winter month, the less will they be fitted fothe nesting responsibilities which follow so quickly on the winter dearth of food. It equally follows that Hip more plentiful will be destructive in sects in spring and summer. According to Buckland, the daily ration of r caterpillar is twice its own weight of leaves; to put it another wav. if a horse ate at the same rato he would consume a ton of hay in 24 hours. So which would we sooner save—the birds or the caterpillars?