STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 6/ 



weeks in a i^lace and teaching in a summer school, I never went 

 out one morning with a class without finding the yellow billed 

 cuckoo. It destroys thousands upon thousands of tent cater- 

 pillars that would otherwise live to damage the fruit crop. 

 While some of our birds devour every smooth caterpillar they 

 find, they have no taste for the hairy varieties, but the cuckoo 

 prefers them. It eats tent caterpillars until its alimentary tract 

 from throat to vent is lined with caterpillar hairs. Cut one of 

 these birds open, and it looks as though he was lined with fur. 



After our summer birds have gleaned all summer long from 

 the trunks of our trees, they leave us, and it does not seem as if 

 anything could be left of eggs and insects under the bark to sup- 

 port the army of insect eating birds that comes down to spend 

 the winter with us. The chickadee nests here in small numbers, 

 but during the winter months it comes down from the north in 

 abundance. Think of the amount of food that is required to 

 support the life of these warm blooded, active, and cheery com- 

 panions of our winter walks. Last winter the thermometer 

 here in ]\Iaine ran as low as 50° below zero, yet these hardy birds 

 bent cheerfully to their task of saving these very apples we have 

 seen at this meeting. Even in the terrible cold they sang at 

 their work, chick-a-dee-dee-dee. 



The white breasted nuthatch is another bird that nests here 

 rarely. But soon as cold weather comes on, his numbers 

 increase and he begins his search up and down the trunks. His 

 song is yank-yank-yank-yank, and he too must search diligently 

 for insect food that escaped the sharp eyes and ready bills of 

 our summer residents. 



Another winter bird is the brown creeper. Like the wood- 

 peckers his tail feathers are fitted for support in climbing. His 

 bill is long and slender and curved to facilitate investigations 

 into insect conditions under bark scales. From early morn till 

 dewy eve — no, there is no dew when he is here — but from early 

 morn till dark he must search for insect food. His particular 

 sphere of action, like the woodpecker's, is the tree trunk. His 

 body is so small that it seems impossible for him to maintain an 

 existence in the terrible cold. Starting at the bottom of the tree 

 — he never crawls down — he begins and circles around the trunk, 

 hunting, hunting; as soon as he gets to the branches, down he 



