there
you will find a tree, attacked by the beetles, from which the
woodpeckers have almost stripped the bark in their search for these
insects.

The food of the martins and swallows is wholly made up of insects. We
have all seen them in their graceful flight and have noticed how they
seize their insect prey while on the wing. The martins are of little
value for food, and yet, in some parts of our country they have become
almost extinct because of the pursuit of them by pot hunters.

[Illustration: _Finley & Bohlman_
A barn swallow.]

[Illustration: _Finley & Bohlman_
A least sandpiper or snipe, one of the shore birds.]

The shore birds form a group of very great value. They include those
long-legged birds with slender bills which are found, usually along the
shores of the ocean and of lakes and small bodies of water, but
sometimes in the interior away from the water. The food of these birds
is almost wholly insects, which are harmful in various ways. Among these
insects are grasshoppers, army worms, cutworms, cabbage worms, grubs,
horseflies, and mosquitoes.

So cruelly and relentlessly have the shore birds been pursued by men who
call themselves "sportsmen;" that many species are nearly extinct. We
hope that the Migratory Bird Law will be enforced and that with the
protection this gives them they will again increase and fill their old
haunts. But we must ever be on the watch, for there will still be greedy
hunters trying to evade the law until all our boys grow up with love and
appreciation for the birds. The killdeer, snipe, and other plovers,
whose habits make them the most interesting of the shore birds,
especially need our protection. We have all seen these birds in our
walks along the shore. Small and delicate their bodies are; each one
would make scarcely a mouthful, and yet the pot hunters have seemed
determined to kill them all.

How many people ever think of the quail in any other light than as a
delicious morsel to be served up on toast for dinner? The quail is not
only useful because of the insects which it destroys, but is a most
wonderfully interesting and attractive bird. If you have ever disturbed
a mountain quail with a brood of young, you will never forget what an
interesting sight the mother presented as she strutted back and forth on
a log, warning her little ones to keep out of sight.

[Illustration: _Finley & Bohlman_
A white heron.]

Quail eat over a hundred kinds of inse