83 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Now while the woodpecker searches for large game, the nut- 

 hatches search for a size next smaller, leaving the titmouse or 

 chicadee that smaller yet. -But we have not finished our econ- 

 omy, since a small, brown and white, active little fellow, smaller 

 even than the chicadee, with a long, slender, curved bill, steps in 

 and picks up the leavings. So quietly does he work that you would 

 hardly know he was there but for the echoed "faint, trilling 

 sound " with which he beguiles the time, and by a sort of ventrilo- 

 quism sets you looking for him in every direction but the right 

 one. If all the other species I have mentioned do good in the 

 economy of agriculture — taken in its broadest sense, though I 

 think that I have not stepped without the boundary of my subject 

 — this species, the brown creeper, surely deserves a place in our 

 list, and by no means an inferior one. 



If I am not tiring you, while these birds are at work upon the 

 trees let us see what is being done about the tree-tops and tender 

 branchlets and leaves. What do we find ? We are stationed in 

 a woods of tall oak and pine trees, at our right are tall, thickly- 

 branched and foliaged hemlocks, at our left low pine shrubs. 

 After fifteen minutes of patient waiting, during which time we 

 have seen all the above-named birds at their proper work as before 

 shown, we catch sight of a small, fairy-like, winged creature, that 

 flies from amidst the dark foliage of the hemlocks and darts about 

 the outside branches of the trees named with the agility and 

 adroitness almost of a humming bird; he clears the air of myriads 

 of flies and gall insects — which latter destroy the beauty and sym- 

 metry of our trees, as well as ruin greatly their foliage — and even 

 seeks the young grub on the leaves. This kinglet, or regulet, as it 

 is often called, is another of those silent workers who keep down 

 the hosts of destroyers of our forest and likewise useful trees, 

 and without whose labors blight and insect ravages would over- 

 take and finally destroy a large portion of our fine woods. Now 

 note a curious fact: Out of the eighteen birds I have mentioned as 

 particularly beneficial to agriculturists and farmers, and otherwise 

 especially useful in nature's economy, all but five of them are more 

 or less constant residents, wherever they occur, all the year around. 

 The five I have mentioned, with a single exception, make up in 

 their presence what they have lost in their absence, by the dili. 

 gence of their pursuit of injurious insects, while, during their visits 

 in other climates, they carry, on their good' work as they do here. 



