16 RELATION OF BIRDS TO COTTON BOLL WEEVIL. 



orioles spend most of the spring and summer in and about the cotton 

 fields and persistently hunt the weevils when they are feeding on the 

 squares. The orioles pass the winter in Central America, return- 

 ing to the United States in April, where they remain until October. 



Orchard oriole (see frontispiece). — This oriole, the smallest of the 

 group, is generally distributed in Texas and other Southern States. 

 Its purse-shaped nest is built in almost any small tree in the orchard, 

 dooryard, pasture, or field. Orchard orioles make frequent excur- 

 sions to the cotton fields, especially when the young are fully fledged, 

 and often feed for hours at a time among the cotton plants. They 

 seem to know where to find the weevils when they are feeding upon 

 the squares, and large numbers are destroyed by them in the course 

 of the season. 



The orioles evidently begin the work of destruction as soon as they 

 arrive from the South, for one taken April 27 contained a boll weevil 

 in its stomach. During the summer months, of course, they find 

 weevils with greater ease, and at this season as many as 13 have been 

 taken from a single stomach. About 30 per cent of the orchard orioles 

 examined in summer contained boll weevils; the total number of 

 weevils eaten by 30 birds was 64, an average of more than 2 to each 

 bird. 



Baltimore oriole (see frontispiece). — These brilliant orioles nest 

 sparingly in northern Louisiana and extreme northern and eastern 

 Texas, but over the greater part of these States they occur as migrants 

 only, most commonly in the fall. They reach the cotton-growing dis- 

 tricts at about the time that the weevils are making their annual 

 flight, and join with the other orioles in reducing the numbers of the 

 insects. Fifty specimens have been examined, of which 11 had eaten 

 a total of 24 weevils, an average of more than 2 to a bird, or about 

 50 per cent of the number of birds examined. The largest number 

 of weevils eaten by a single bird was 9. 



Bulloch oriole. — This is a western species, occurring as far east in 

 Texas as Corpus Christi, Beeville, and Austin. These orioles are 

 rather abundant in the regions they inhabit, and in August and Sep- 

 tember visit the cotton fields in flocks of 10 to 20 individuals. About 

 27 per cent of those examined contained boll weevils, the largest 

 number of weevils found in one stomach being 41. The total number 

 of weevils eaten by 40 birds was 133, an average of over 3 weevils to 

 each bird, 



BLACKBIRDS. 



Blackbirds belong in the same family with the orioles and their 

 services as boll weevil destroyers are even more important. 



Seven species occur in Texas in winter, and five of them are known 

 to eat the boll weevil. Their Avork is done principally in winter and 



