REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 63 



sand caterpillars was the daily ration eaten by the young birds, 

 besides what the four adults consumed. Consider for a moment 

 the work done in one month by these birds ; and when the 

 second and third broods appeared, 90,000 caterpillars were 

 deprived of ability to injure fruit trees during every period of 

 thirty days. 



Our common yellow warbler is another bird which comes in 

 numbers from the South and makes its home in our orchards 

 and village streets. Almost entirely insectiverous, it feeds on 

 the greatest pests that attack our orchards and small fruits. 

 Caterpillars form two-thirds of its food, and while it is not 

 primarily adapted to a tree-trunk life exclusively, it is always 

 on the alert for small bark beetles, boring beetles and plant 

 lice. Like the woodpecker and black-and-white creeper he 

 sings at this work, and as he eats the young larvse of the 

 gypsy and brown-tail, its song, szveet-sweet-szveet-szveetity- 

 szvcet would not seem inappropriate. 



The American redstart is another trunk loving gleaner whose 

 fly-catching proclivities are so well developed that nothing es- 

 capes it. It delights in hairy caterpillars, moths and beetles 

 that would otherwise live to defoliate our orchards and destroy 

 our fruit. It forages from ground to tree-top, holding its 

 wings in readiness for instant attack upon every moving insect. 

 It is one of our most beautiful and trusting birds and has a 

 sweet and varied song. Chapman says that in Cuba, where 

 most of our warblers winter, they are known as "butterflies,'' 

 but the redstart's flaming plumage has won for it the name of 

 "candelita," the "little torch." 



The black-throated green warbler is another frequenter of 

 the trunks of trees, though most of its work is confined to the 

 area covered by the branches. Its food consists of a variety of 

 small insects, including several injurious caterpillars, curcuHos, 

 beetles and bugs. The stomachs of five birds taken in Nebraska 

 contained 220 insects, an average of 44 to each bird. Seventy 

 per cent of the food of one Illinois specimen consisted of 

 canker worms. Like the black-and-white creeper, the black- 

 throated green warbler is a species dear to the hearit of the 

 young naturalist, and its characteristic song is early learned. 

 Bradford Torrey translates it as "Trees, trees, murmuring 

 trees," but to me it seems to sav, "Cheese, cheese, a little more 



