139 



He watched the birds and found that they were bolting the objection- 

 able insects with avidity. The grosbeak was the pioneer, but as the 

 years have gone by other eastern birds have conquered their distrust 

 of the new food and relished it. 



The latest observations relate to the cotton boll weevil, which it has 

 been found the mocking-bird will eat. It seems likely but for the 

 great diminution in the number of mockingbirds the Texas pest would 

 never have gained a foothold, or that with more stringent laws for 

 protecting them the great problem of the Southwest is solved. It is 

 also probable that ground-feeding birds such as the grackles and 

 pipilos would probably accomplish quite as much. 



In 1896 the United States Government caused the food of the blue 

 jay to be investigated. It was found that three-fourths of its food 

 consists of vegetable matter and that the remainder was composed 

 mostly of insects. It was found that they ate insects every month in 

 the year, the percentag3 varying from one in January -to sixty-six in 

 August, and that large numbers of grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts, 

 as well as the caterpillars of the brown-tail and gyp^y moths, are des- 

 troyed by them. 



There is no question that bushes and trees producing juicy edible 

 fruits are very attractive to birds, and that robins, thrushes, and king- 

 birds frequent the wild cherry, elder, dogwood, tupelo, and viburnum, 

 and the tangles of blackberries as long as there is any fruit to be fouid. 

 In the fall the goldfinch may be looked for in the woody tangles of 

 composites among the golden-rods and asters and the chickadees on the 

 sweet-gums and other native trees in the winter We cannot expect 

 the native birds to remain with us if we destroy all the native plants 

 and in place of their favourite food and nesting places give them 

 cultivated trees and shrubs and smooth grassy lawns ! It makes very 

 little difference to the birds what man does if he does not disturb them 

 and leaves enough food and shelter. They will nest close to a railroad 

 track with hundreds of trains thundering past, or settle in the midst 

 of factories and overhead traffic, like tne wild duck in the Genesee 

 River at Rochester — if only the proper f )od and shelter is at hand. 



PLANT WOUNDS AND NATURAL PRUNING.* 



By C. E. Waters. 

 Perhaps we do not always remember, when we go into the woods, 

 that the trees with tall clean trunks, were not always so smooth and 

 lofty, but started as small plants with branches near the ground. How 

 is it, then, that there is so little evidence of those old branches when 

 they grow larger ? The tree must be able in some way or other, to 

 gat rid of them without injury to itself. This requires breaking the 

 branches in some way, in spite of the fact that perhaps the greatest 

 danger to which a plant or animal can be exposed, is a wound by 

 means of which bacteria may enter and cause blooi poisoning or decay, 

 as the case may bo Every healthy organism, whether p'ant or ani- 

 mal, is able to resist such attacks for so-ne time, wh ch is not a bad 

 thing for the bacteria, as otherwise it would be like the bear living by 



* The Plant World, Vol. VII, No. 3, 1904. 



