102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



under the tender leaves. If you go in the morning and dig 

 into the ground at the foot of that plant, you will find him, 

 plump and fat. I could never see where the crows dug for 

 those worms in a corn field. If they would, it would com- 

 pensate somewhat for the mischief which they do otherwise. 

 I think the account with the crow is about an even thing. I 

 would much prefer to have the crow around than to have the 

 Irish sparrow. It is called the "Irish sparrow" in England, 

 because it is so pugnacious. They say it is rightly named. 



The king-bird, also, has no crop ; everything passes from 

 the oesophagus right into the gizzard, and there it goes 

 through the mill. Instead of eating the working bee, the 

 one that makes the honey, they take the males called drones. 

 A king-bird will sit on the branch of a tree near a hive, and 

 when a drone flies into the air, the bird knows him in a 

 minute, and will fly up and catch him, and go back to the 

 same limb and sit for another. The only difference in that 

 regard is, that when a queen bee flies, they are apt to take 

 her, and when they do, the apiarist must look for a new queen 

 for his colony. 



Mr. Wetherell. I wish to say, in regard to the crow, to 

 which reference has been made, that perhaps the crow, like 

 the robin, may hunt those worms by ear, or instinct, or both. 

 I suppose the doctor has often seen a robin run along upon a 

 grass-plot, especially if it has been recently mown, turn its 

 head one side, and then thrust its beak in and draw out an 

 earth worm. I have seen that a great many times. Some 

 people make the point against the robin, that in destroying 

 the earth worm, he destroys what is more useful to the farmer 

 than the robin itself. One would think it was so, in view of 

 what Darwin has recently published. 



The speaker has alluded to boys and unscientific sportsmen 

 destroying certain birds. That calls to mind the fact, that 

 in Massachusetts — I do not know how it is in Connecticut — a 

 license can be obtained of the selectmen of a town authoriz- 

 ing a scientific sportsman to go out and shoot birds for scien- 

 tific purposes, as claimed, and also to gather the eggs for 



