Food habits.—­So varied is this task of evening up in nature that if attended to properly the workers must be numerous in individuals and possess widely different habits.  That such is the case can readily be seen by the following brief account of the various groups of our Nebraska birds, along with brief statements of their food habits.

The Grebes and Loons feed chiefly upon snails and other aquatic animals such as are found about their haunts.  They also capture many grasshoppers and similar insects that happen in their way.  They cannot, therefore, be classed among the especially beneficial birds, neither can they be termed injurious on account of what they eat.

The Gulls, provided as they are with long wings and great powers for flight, are not confined to the seacoast, hence they reach far inland in their migrations, feeding extensively upon insects like locusts, June-beetles, crickets, etc., large numbers of which they destroy annually.  Several kinds of these birds are known to follow the plough and pick up the white grubs and other insects that are turned up and laid bare.  In early days, when grasshoppers did much harm in this state, numerous flocks of these birds were seen to feed upon these insects.

The Cormorants and Pelicans are chiefly destroyers of fishes and frogs, hence can hardly be classed among the most beneficial forms; but whether or not they do any more than to maintain the necessary equilibrium in that particular part of the vast field of nature it is difficult to judge without time for investigation.

The various Ducks and Geese which are also nearly as aquatic in their habits as some of the foregoing, frequently leave their haunts and make excursions into the surrounding country where in summer they feed upon locusts, beetles, and other injurious insects.  They also partake of considerable quantities of vegetable food, as grains, weed seeds, grasses, and other herbage.  While not included among the insectivorous forms these birds do much towards diminishing the ever increasing horde of creeping and jumping things.  Ducks and geese on the other hand are largely utilized by us as food:  while their feathers make comfortable pillows and coverlets.

The Herons, Cranes, and Rails are frequenters of marshes and the margins of streams and bodies of water, where they assist in keeping the various forms among the animal life balanced.  Fishes, frogs, snails, insects, and crustaceans are alike devoured by them.

The Snipe, Sandpipers, Plovers, Phalaropes, Curlews, etc., are great destroyers of insects.  Moving as many of them do in great flocks and spreading out over the meadows, pastures, and hillsides, as well as among the cultivated fields, they do a large amount of careful police service in arresting the culprits among insects.  They even pry them out of burrows and crevices in the earth where these creatures lurk during daytime only to come forth after nightfall to destroy vegetation.  The large flocks of Eskimo Curlews that formerly passed through eastern Nebraska did magnificent work during years when the Rocky Mountain Locust was with us, as did also the equally large flocks of Golden Plovers.  The Bartramian Sandpiper even now is a great factor each summer in checking the increasing locusts on our prairies.