TRANSACTIONS OF HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILL. 



297 



never, to my know-ledge, our grapes. His depredations through the 

 entire season would not equal one-fourth those of the robin, while the 

 brown thrush does absolutely nothing for the garden or orchard, as a 

 rule, until having raised his young in the forest or grove or hazel thicket 

 he brings the whole newly-fledged brood, with "his sisters and his 

 cousins and his aunts," to pick our cherries and other fruits, with as much 

 affrontery as if he had raised them himself. Then the whole hungry brood 

 fasten upon one fruit after another as it ripens, keeping an eye especially 

 to the finest cluster of your earliest grapes, which he punches with his 

 long bill, even through carefully-prepared nettings if necessary. The 

 cat-bird is delicate in his feeding compared with this gormandizing mon- 

 ster, or even with the portly robin, and is in fact a gentleman in his 

 feelings and deportment — a cleanly gentleman too, if almost hourly 

 ablutions in the dust and heat of summer can authorize that distinction. 

 I trust I have defended successfully, if a little warmly, my graceful, 

 clerical-looking little friend. 



In the report of 1876 the sparrow-hawk was quoted as wholly injuri- 

 ous, being 100 per cent., in other words at par, in his unmitigated 

 rascality. In 1878 only one specimen appears to have been examined, 

 and he was probably shot on fast day, having only a single item, a 

 mammal (probably a mouse), in his abstemious craw. Well, we should 

 say from that exhibit he had nobly redeemed his character, and that his 

 virtue instead of his vices might be hereafter quoted at par. 



Only two other instances and we have done with the reports. In 

 1876 the barn-swallow and the chimney-swift were each quoted at eighty 

 per cent, injurious, while in 1878 the two barn-swallows examined 

 exhibited two Hymenoptera as against one Coleoptera, one Carabidae, 

 one Diptera, one Hemiptera and one Neuroptera, or five to one bene- 

 ficial, counting the Hymenoptera as injuriously destroyed. Of the 

 chimney-swift three were examined, exhibiting three Hymenoptera to 

 ten whose destruction might be considered beneficial. These reversals of 

 former decisions merely show that the facts so far accumulated are not 

 sufficient for the determination of character, even in birds. We admit 

 the skill and carefulness of the Professor, and his scientific methods, and 

 agree with him perfectly as to the necessity of more extended research 

 in his well-chosen field. 



The cedar-bird is frequently quoted as altogether injurious, but in 

 this there is certainly a great mistake. There are many seasons in which 

 they are forced to live on insects, as they sometimes remain in this climate 

 all winter. The present winter is unusually mild, and scarcely a day passes 

 without a large flock of cedar-birds making their appearance to gather 

 fruit from what is left of the crop of a large Mountain ash, which stands 

 in front of my window. Of course the remnant of the feast can scarcely 

 supply their needs and frequently the trees are quite stripped of fruit 

 before winter fairly sets in ; and then they subsist on seeds of weeds and 

 eggs and larvae of insects, until the next season supplies them with fruits. 

 In this connection we may be pardoned for quoting from the Industrial 

 Press of March 20th, 1879, ^ paragraph written by me as descriptive of 



