450 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



kinds of insects, such as the arniy worm. Miss Howe has shown that 

 seed eating birds are very helpful. Prof. Real shows that in Iowa the 

 Tree Sparrows from October to April destroy annually eight hundred and 

 seventy-tive tons of seed of noxious weeds. To my mind, the cuckoo is the 

 most beneficial bird that visits an orchard. It feeds largely on cater- 

 pillars of the hairy sort. We have several woodpeckers. Among them is 

 the Hairy Woodpecker, Downy, the Flicker, the Redheaded, the Yellow- 

 bellied Sapsucker. and the Red-bellied Woodpecker. The Redheaded 

 Woodpecker is especially conspicuous about clierry time. Yo\i find many 

 woodpeckers in the forests, particularly among the hills of southern Indi- 

 ana. The Hairy Woodpecker eats 68 per cent, insects; the Downy 75 per 

 cent, insects; the Flicker 43 per cent, which is almost entirely ants; the 

 Redheaded lives upon insects, and cherries— always the latter during the 

 clion-y season— the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker likes the sap of trees, prin- 

 cipally of maples and "apple trees, and also the insects which are drawn 

 by the sweet sap. The Red-bellied Woodpecker largely destroys forest 

 insects, and also insects that infest the orchard near by. 



There is a belief that the Kingbird destroys many bees. Careful in- 

 vestigation has shown that while this bird is frequently found about the 

 hives, and frequently darts in among the bees, almost all of the insects it 

 catches there are flies and drones, and only occasionally a worker is 

 caught. Its food is decidedly noxious insects. Its nest may be found 

 in the top of an orchard tree and there it raises its young and gathers food 

 nearby for itself and family. 



There are three other Flycatchers that live about an orchard, the 

 Acadian, the Great Crested and the Least Flycatchers. There is an 

 interesting but curious thing about the Great Crested Flycatcher, and that 

 is almost invariably you will find in its nest a snake skin. It certainly 

 must believe in charms, or something of that sort. When you find a nest 

 with a snake skin in it, it is safe to say that it is the nest of the Great 

 Crested Flycatcher. 



The Crow is a bird which is both a friend and an enemy of the fruit 

 grower. It will take chickens and eggs if it gets half a chance, and will 

 pull up the corn, and eat it when in milk, but aside from all this it also has 

 its good traits. Most of the fruits it eats are of the wild kind, and it 

 very seldom eats cultivated fruits. What does it do that is not injurious? 

 It eats innirious insects. It destroys the insects from wlaich we get our 

 grub worm, which is so disastrous to all fruit growers. It eats May 

 beetles, June bugs, and other destructive beetles; grasshoppers, bugs, 

 caterpillars, tomato worms and wire worms. 



With the Blue .Tay it is much the same as with the Ci'ow. Some are 

 harmful, but the bulk are not. Beal says that they eat many noxious 

 insects: their ne.«!t rolibing habit is less than what has been asserted of 

 them; and they do little harm to the agiuculturist. Bobolinks and Red- 



