REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 65 



couraged. The chippy is no epicure in the matter of insect diet 

 and devours the brown-tail, tent caterpillars, ^tussocks, codling 

 moth, forest tent caterpillars, leaf-eating beetles, cabbage 

 worms, beet leaf grubs, and other beetles of various kinds. 

 Mr. Kirkland saw it eat fifty-four canker worms for one meal. 



Another one of our birds that is valuable to the fruit grower 

 is the Maryland yellow throat. It is an easy bird to study, 

 for three reasons : First, it has a distinctive habitat ; second, 

 it has a distinctive song; and third, it has a distinctive colora- 

 tion. Its throat is yellow ; there is a black stripe across its 

 forehead, eyes and cheeks ; its back is olive green. Its song is 

 very characteristic. It is written : Whitfity-T(.'hittity-ivhittity- 

 zvhit, and lintchery-zmtchery-zvitchery-witch. 



I was lecturing on birds at the Newcastle Summer school, 

 when a woman asked: "What bird is it that says, 'Great 

 Caesar-great Caesar-great Caesarf I said, "I do not know, 

 but if you will come out tomorrow morning with my bird 

 class at five o'clock, I will tell you what it is, if we can find 

 it." She lived five miles from the village, but at five o'clock the 

 next morning she was on hand. My class had been studying 

 the Maryland yellow throat for a week and every one in that 

 class of forty-five had learned its song. We started on our 

 walk, when all at once this woman exclaimed, "Oh, there's 

 the great Caesar bird." And there was our old friend, the 

 Maryland yellow throat. I told this story at a teachers' meet- 

 ing in Augusta the next winter. After the meeting a young 

 lady came to me and said, "I have another story about your 

 'great Ceasar' bird. I went from that summer school down to 

 the beach and the cook at the cottage where I stayed said, 'Do 

 you know anything about birds?' I said, 'Yes. I know any- 

 thing.' 'Then please tell me what bird it is that, every morning 

 when I begin work, comes to the kitchen door and sings, 

 Gingerbread-gingerbread-gingerbread ?' " The yellow throat is 

 a bird of the roadside and shrubbery, wherever water is found, 

 but it is a constant visitor to the orchard for caterpillars of 

 all kinds. 



The yellow-billed cuckoo should be better known for it eats 

 tent caterpillars from morning till night. Of 155 stomachs ex- 

 amined between May and October, only one contained fruit. 

 In a five-years study of the bird conditions in the State of 

 5 



