70 THE PLANT WORLD 



to be investigated. It was found that three-fourths of its food consists 

 of vegetable matter and that the remainder was composed mostly of 

 insects. It was found that they ate insects every month in the year, the 

 percentage varying from one in January to sixty-six in August, and that 

 large numbers of grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts, as well as the cater- 

 pillars of the browntail and gypsy moths, are destroyed by them. 



There is no question that bushes and trees producing juicy edible 

 fruits are very attractive to birds, and that robins, thrushes, and king- 

 birds frequent the wild cherry, elder, dogAvood, tupelo, and viburnum 

 and the tangles of blackberries as long as there is any fruit to be found. 

 In the fall the goldfinch may be looked for in the woody tangles of 

 composites among the golden -rods and asters and the chickadees on the 

 sweet-gums and other native trees in the winter. We can not expect the 

 native birds to remain with us if we destroy all the native plants and in 

 place of their favorite food and nesting places give them cultivated trees 

 and shrubs and smooth grassy lawns ! It makes very little difference to 

 the birds what man does if he does not disturb them and leaves enough 

 food and shelter. They will nest close to a railroad track with hundreds 

 of trains thundering past, or settle in the midst of factories and overhead 

 traffic, like the wild duck in the Genesee River at Rochester — if only the 

 proper food and shelter is at hand. Elizabeth G. Britton. 



NOTES. 



Mr. Charles L. Pollard, former secretary of the Society, will lec- 

 ture on wild flower preservation before the Brooklyn Institute on May 18. 

 He has made extensive additions to his collection of plant photographs, 

 some of which will be exhibited for the first time on that occasion. 



Arrangements have not yet been completed for the lectures to be 

 delivered under the auspices of the Stokes fund of the New York Botan- 

 ical Garden. A tour of various eastern cities will probably be made in May 

 by some lecturer selected by the Garden on the recommendation of the 

 Executive Committee of the Wild Flower Preservation Society. Full 

 announcement will be made in the April issue of The Plant World. 



We have not received recent reports from our local chapters, and 

 would urge the officers to send in accounts of their work for publication . 



