206 



MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTURE. 



Fig. 24. 



-American Swan. Cygnus Americanus. 

 (Natatores.) 



young died before growing up. Seventeen young bluebirds 

 and their parents, six in number, twenty-three insect- eating 

 birds, were thus induced to make their home in our or- 

 chard, the parent birds 

 for about five months 

 and the young, say 

 about three months. 

 Certainly at a very low 

 estimate each bird 

 would average twenty 

 insects a day, for the 

 food of these birds con- 

 sists entirely of insects. 

 At this rate the old 

 birds would have destroyed, during their stay here, eigh- 

 teen thousand insects, and the young thirty thousand six 



hundred, which gives a 

 total of forty-eight thou- 

 sand six hundred insects 

 destroyed from our own 

 and our neighbors' trees , 

 and it did not take us 

 half an hour to prepare 

 and put up these simple 

 accommodations. Are 



Fig. 25.— Mallard Duck. Anas boschas. UOt thcSC factS cloqUCUt ? 



Then how interesting to watch the housekeeping arrangements 

 of these beautiful little neighbors ; to hear their welcome song 



when winter seemed 

 still with us ; to hear 

 them debate the situa- 

 tion and finally decide 

 in favor of our apple- 

 tree ; to see them car- 

 rying up grasses and 

 cotton and feathers and 

 weavinof them together 



Fig. 26.— Wood, or Summer-duck. Aix spotisa. iuto a bed of doWU for 



the protection of their early-laid eggs ; to watch their love- 

 making and all their gentle, afiectionate ways towards each 



