Arkansas is remarkable for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and many interesting problems of distribution are presented as a result of its topography and geological position.
The principal method used by the Biological Survey in investigating the food habits of birds is an examination of the contents of stomachs, the material for which is obtained from all parts of the United States. In case of each species the separate data accumulated by examining as many stomachs as possible are tabulated and show the food of the bird in question to consist of various proportions of certain elements.
The native sparrows are the most abundant and widely distributed of the small birds inhabiting the rural districts of the United States. Wherever there are farms these characteristic little birds may be found nesting in orchard, berry patch, vineyard, or hedgerow, enlivening the shrubbery from dooryard to outlying field with their songs, or in winter rising from the ground and fluttering from bush to bush before one who invades their haunts.
In response to numerous complaints from fruit growers concerning depredations by birds in orchards and vineyards in the Pacific coast region, the investigation of the subject was undertaken by the Biological Survey.
Two distinct groups of finches or sparrows are commonly known as grosbeaks. One of these, which includes the pine and evening grosbeaks, is of little practical importance, since its members breed and pass most of their lives in mountainous regions, or in the northern parts of North America. The other group includes the cardinal, gray, rose-breasted, black-headed, and blue grosbeaks, which spend either the summer or the entire year within agricultural regions of the United States.
From the time when the pioneers first swung their axes in the primeval forests of New York, lumbermen have been closely connected with the industrial progress and development of the State. Although this use of the axe alone would hardly constitute lumbering as understood today, still it was not many years until a sawmill appeared in each settlement and the lumber industry was formally inaugurated.
Of all the direct influences of the forest the influence upon the supply of water in streams and upon the regularity of their flow is the most important in human economy. Yet so many are the factors which play related parts in this influence, so great is the difficulty of observing them with precision, and so wide the range of economic interests affected, that considerable divergence of opinion has arisen on the subject.
The present volume is the first of a series of monographs designed to make known to science the extinct vertebrate life of North America.
