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. Flycatchers snap up the weevils near trees and shrubbery. Wrens hunt them out when concealed under bark or rubbish. Blackbirds catch them on the ground, as do the killdeer, titlark, meadow lark, and others; while orioles hunt for them on the bolls. But it is the peculiar function of swallows to catch the weevils as they are making long flights, leaving the cotton fields in search of hiding places in which to winter or entering them to continue their work of devastation.