millinery purposes, and despite protective laws, considerable numbers
are still killed for the hat trade. It is hardly necessary to point out
that their importance as insect eaters everywhere demands their
protection, but more especially in the cotton belt.

NIGHTHAWK.--The nighthawk, or bull-bat, also renders important service
in the destruction of weevils, and catches them on the wing in
considerable numbers, especially during its migration. Unfortunately,
_the nighthawk is eaten for food in some sections of the South, and
considerable numbers are shot for this purpose_. The bird's value for
food, however, is infinitesimal as compared with the service it renders
the cotton grower and other agriculturists, and every effort should be
made to spread broadcast a knowledge of its usefulness as a weevil
destroyer, with a view to its complete protection.

SWALLOWS.--Of all the birds now known to destroy weevils, swallows are
the most important. Six species occur in Texas and the southern states.
The martin, the barn swallow, the bank swallow, the roughwing, and the
cliff swallow breed locally in Texas, and all of them, except the cliff
swallow, breed in the other cotton states. The white-bellied, or tree
swallow, nests only in the North, and by far the greater number of cliff
swallows nest in the North and West.

[Illustration: THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE
The Deadly Enemy of the Cotton-Boll Weevil
From the "American Natural History"]

As showing how a colony of martins thrives when provided with sufficient
room to multiply, an experiment by Mr. J. Warren Jacobs, of Waynesburg,
Pa., may be cited. The first year five pairs were induced to occupy the
single box provided, and raised eleven young. The fourth year three
large boxes, divided into ninety-nine rooms, contained fifty-three
pairs, and they raised about 175 young. The colony was thus nearly three
hundred strong at the close of the fourth season. The effect of this
number of hungry martins on the insects infesting the neighborhood may
be imagined.

From the standpoint of the farmer and the cotton grower, swallows are
among the most useful birds. Especially designed by nature to capture
insects in midair, their powers of flight and endurance are unexcelled,
and in their own field they have no competitors. Their peculiar value to
the cotton grower consists in the fact that, like the nighthawk, they
capture boll weevils when flying over the fields, which no other birds
do. F