124 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



been formed ; the mulberry trees were stimulated by judicious trimming, and bore 

 a considerable crop of early fruit which ripened in advance of the cherries, and 

 served to attract them to the vicinity of the orchard. Ten nesting boxes were put 

 up for the Wrens and Blue-birds; but as the Blue-birds were very rare this season 

 none came to the orchard. Two families of Wrens, however, were reared in the 

 boxes in place of one family last year. Nesting materials — strings, hair and straw 

 — were hung in the trees and scattered about. Several marauding cats were killed, 

 and an attempt was made to keep nest-hunting boys away from the neighborhood as 

 much as possible. Thirty-six nests of birds were discovered in the neighborhood, 

 as follows : 



"Three red-eyed Vireos, ten Robins, four Baltimore Orioles, three Cuckoos, five 

 Chipping Sparrows, three Least Flycatchers, two Redstarts, two Yellow Warblers, 

 two Chickadees, two House Wrens. 



" Of these all but three were destroyed, probably by boys, the nests being torn 

 down and the eggs missing. The three which escaped destruction were two wrens' 

 nests, which had been built in bo.xes upon buildings, and a robin's nest in a maple 

 tree within ten feet of a chamber window. This wholesale destruction of nests 

 discouraged several pairs of birds, and they disappeared from the neighborhood. 

 Those remaining built new nests, and after a second or third attempt a few 

 succeeded in rearing young. One nest of Orioles escaped the general destruction, 

 and the birds were busy for a long time carrying canker-worms to their young. One 

 of them was noticed to take eleven canker-worms in its beak at one time and fly 

 with them to the nest. The Vireos, Warblers, Chickadees, Cuckoos, Orioles and 

 Chipping Sparrows were particularly active in catching canker-worms, and the Eng- 

 lish Sparrow killed them in considerable numbers. 



" If the thirty-six pairs of birds whose nests were found had succeeded in raising 

 their young it is probable that they would have disposed of most of the canker- 

 worms in the neighborhood. Five thousand of these larvs are sufficient to strip a 

 large apple tree. One hundred and eight would have been reared had each pair of 

 birds raised three. According to Professor Aughey's experience sixty insects per 

 day as food for each bird, both young and old, would be a very low estimate. 

 Suppose each of these one hundred and eight birds had received its sixty insects 

 per day, there would have been 6,480 caterpillars destroyed daily. The destruction 

 of this number of caterpillars would be enough to save the foliage and fruitage of 

 one apple tree. In thirty days the foliage of thirty apple trees could have been 

 saved, or 194,400 canker-worms destroyed. This does not include what the old birds 

 themselves would have eaten." 



