278 STATE BOAED OF AGEICULTUKE. 



absent from their digestive canal. This grasshopper, which is scarcely to be 

 distinguished from the Oalojjtenus sprcetus, or destructive grasshopper of Kansas 

 and Nebraska, has been often quite destructive in our own and other States of 

 the east, and vrere they as numerous, they would be as dreaded as their western 

 relatives. Kemove oitr birds — and none are more meritorious in this respect 

 than these same robins and blackbirds, — and Ave would have as good reason to 

 cry for aid as our less fortunate brothers of the west. The treeless plains of 

 the west are not attractive to the birds, hence the usual balance of nature is not 

 maintained. In other words the insects have the long end of the lever. It 

 is a safe assertion that our fellow citizens of Kansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska 

 are building better than they know in setting out trees. Tree-jjlanting will be 

 to the west what forest preservation will be to us, — her salvation. 



Is it not a significant fact that in the west and southwest of our State, where 

 fruit culture is a specialty, and where the entire preservation of the small 

 fruits can only be gained by a thorough destruction of these birds, — there the 

 perj)lexing problem arises ; What can we do to prevent the ravages of the cut- 

 worms and white-grubs? A few years ago, the venerable Dr. Kirtland of 

 Cleveland, Ohio, a man no less distinguished as a pomologist than as a scientific 

 scholar, said tome, "I have been a close and untiring student of birds, and 

 that too in a practical sense, for over seventy years, and my experience and 

 observation, would lead me to plant cherry-trees and grave-vines to attract the 

 birds, and not to destroy the birds to save the cherries and grapes. 



Said Mr. C. Engle, the celebrated fruit-grower of Paw Paw, Van Buren 

 County, to the orchard committee of the State Pomological Society for 1874, 

 in response to the question : How do you manage to protect your cherries from 

 the birds? ''I kill them. I have no more hesitation in killing a bird for the 

 same reason than a curculio, the laws of the State to the contrary notwith- 

 standing." Said Hon. A. B. Copley to me the following winter, " What can 

 we do to exterminate the white-grubs? They are doing incalculable damage." 

 Now we can raise small fruits, and still protect and foster the birds. We can 

 not raise grain and grass, in presence of the white-grubs. As yet we know no 

 method, other than through the agency of the birds, to destroy these insect 

 pests. And foremost among the ranks of this valuable army, stand the robin 

 and blackbird. 



Another fact which I have ascertained by my summer's experience gave me no 

 little surprise and gratification: which is that these birds seldom feed on bene- 

 ficial insects. I scarcely ever found either parasitic or predaceous insects in 

 their stomachs. Such welcome discrimination is not so difficult to explain when 

 we remember that such insects very often give off a very pungent odor, whicli 

 very likely was given for protection. 



What, then, is our policy in the premises? Undoubtedly to make our plant- 

 ations of small fruits so ample that we shall feel to welcome the birds. As in 

 many other cases, our laws are at present ahead of our practice ; yet here as 

 elsewhere we may expect that very soon a better knowledge will lead the people 

 to appreciate the excellence of the laws. 



THE ARMY WORM. 



Leucania unipuncta, Haw. Sub-Order — Lepidoptera. Family — Noctuidce. 



During the past season the southern and western part of our State, and the 

 regions south, south-west, and south-east, have experienced one of those strange 



