STATE HOKTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. I 25 



country. A reference to this will show, in brief space, substantially all 

 that is known respecting the economical relations of any insect eaten by 

 birds, and will thus furnish the best possible basis for an estimate of its 

 value. In short, this whole subject was so new that the first step in the 

 work was necessarily the manufacture of the tools. Visible progress is 

 consequently slow in the beginning, but will be much more rapid when 

 everything is well organized. 



Another serious obstacle to the fullest success in this matter is the 

 deficiency of our knowledge of entomology. This may appear remark- 

 able to some of you ; for there seems to be an impression current that, 

 excepting the answer to a few insoluble problems, we already know about 

 all of entomology that is really worth knowing, and, indeed, a good deal 

 more. I had not been long at work on the food of birds, however, before 

 I discovered that all entomology is economical. Only Omniscience 

 itself could form a perfect judgment of the relative values of insects. It 

 is not too much to say that there is no fact relating to the name, structure, 

 relations, habits, development and published literature of any species or 

 other group of the insects of the State which has not its bearing upon 

 this question. I find use, therefore, at every turn, for even the most 

 trivial details of the specialist. Now that for days and weeks together 

 we have been compelled in the course of this research to study minutely 

 the smallest details of the mouths of beetles, mounting, drawing, record- 

 ing the teeth on their mandibles, the hairs on their tongues, the dimples 

 in their chins — finding such knowledge necessary at every turn to reduce 

 to sharp certainty what must otherwise be left in the fog of general 

 estimate and conjecture, nothing could add to the positiveness of my 

 conviction that there is really nothing essentially trivial or useless in 

 science \ that every part of it so modifies every other that we can know 

 nothing truly until we know it all; and that the more detailed and 

 accurate is our knowledge, the more definite and valuable will be our 

 reasoned-out conclusions. 



Before the food of the separate species of Thrushes is considered, a 

 few words will be necessary respecting the family as a whole. It consists, 

 in this State, of nine species of birds, the Robin, the Cat-bird, the 

 Brown Thrush or Thrasher, the Wood Thrush, the Hermit Thrush, 

 Swainson's Thrush, the Alice Thrush, the Mocking Bird and Wilson's 

 Thrush or the Wren. 



The first four of these stay with us, in this latitude, during the 

 summer ; the others migrate beyond our borders, except the Mocking 

 Bird, and that only reaches the southern third of the State in any 

 numbers. The first three, the Robin, Cat-bird and Brown Thrush, are 

 by far the best known and most important garden birds ; and it is on 

 account of their close relations to the business and labors of the members 

 of this Society, making them more interesting to you than any other 

 birds, that I have selected the family to which they belong for my 

 report at this meeting. 



I have now carefully studied the contents of the stomachs of one 

 hundred and forty-nine specimens of the family, shot in various parts of 



