Secretary's Budget. 



371 



Detri- Bene- 



mental ficial Un- 



Family. insects. inseots. known. 



Thrushes 86 17 133 



Bhiebirds 42 5 22 



Kinglets 9 2 64 



Chickadees 17 2 37- 



Muthatches 10 2 56 



Wrens 23 '2 87 



Tanagers 38 15 84 



Swallows 124 67 108 



Vireos 211 9 182 



Butcher birds 42 8 24 



Finches 226 16 229 



Starlings 119 12 129 



Jays 10 5 39 



Flycatchers . . . 126 53 400 



Goatsuckers 18 1 97 



Cuckoos 102 3 31 



Woodpeckers 352 22 1,901 



ANTS, SNAKES, AND BIRDS. 



We stumble over a mammoth '^ ant-heap." There were num- 

 bers of them about. "Why not destroy these fellows ? " said the 

 unsophisticated visitor. " Because they are useful. Ants, striped 

 snakes, and birds of all kinds are protected here. These ants are 

 insect eaters. Throw a branch covered with worms upon that heap 

 and in fifteen minutes there will not be a show of a worm left. 

 Ants are particularly fond of canker-worms and leaf-rollers. A 

 hired man made this discovery accidentally ; future observations 

 proved it to be true.'' — Prairie Farmer. 



EXPERIENCE AND INCIDENT. 



Mr. C. M. Weed, who is carefully studying the kind of food 

 taken by our common birds, finds much and weighty evidence in 

 their favor as farmers' and gardeners' friends. For instance, July 

 9th, in the stomach of an adult robin he counted sixty maggots of 

 the genus Anthomyia — which ruin the cabbage, spoil the radish and 

 blight the onion. This, too, just at the time when cherries and 

 raspberries were abundant and luscious. "Tally one for the 

 robin." — Neiv York Tribune. 



ENGLISH SPARROWS. 



L. D. Watkins, of Manchester, stated that three years since 

 while in England investigating the "great sparrow question," he 

 found it a most fearful pest of plums and small fruits, so much so 



