1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



63 



Birds will not starve. When they cannot get veg- 

 etable food they take to animal, and the reverse 

 under other circumstances. Mr. Forbes shot his 

 birds on the 24th of May, 1881, and 20th of May, 

 1882, and the contents of the craw showed that all 

 the birds fed on animal food. At that early season 

 there are few seeds to be had. Some birds had 

 seeds of asters and other Compositae, bristle grass 

 (Setaria, which by the way has the name of pigeon 

 grass in this paper), and seeds of a few other plants 

 which perhaps were kept from distribution. under 

 the snow. Birds like the woodpecker seem to have 

 no compunction about stealing the farmer's new- 

 sown corn in a pinch ; and such kinds as the yel- 

 low bird, riot on insect food. 



An interesting item in this experience is that dif- 

 ferent birds seem to prefer different kinds of in- 

 sects, but on analysis this is found not so much a 

 matter of gastronomies as of strength or peculiar 

 habits of the bird. The robin for instance was 

 found to use cut-worms and other terrestrial crea- 

 tures, to an enormous extent. The canker worm, 

 which abounded in the orchard, was barely 

 touched. The yellow bird had two-thirds of the 

 total amount eaten of canker worms. We can see 

 that the superior strength of the robin, and its 

 habit of being frequently on the ground, give it 

 advantages for searching for earth-loving creatures 

 which the yellow-bird does not possess. 



As to the leading question proposed, the influence 

 on keeping down the canker-worm, the great ques- 

 tion remains in how far does the enormous number 

 eaten by the birds, aid the fruit grower? It is evi- 

 dently the design of nature that a very large pro- 

 portion of that which is created shall serve as food 

 for the others, and that after all this has been ac- 

 complished, there shall still be enough left to repro- 

 duce the species. The forty-five acres of apple- 

 trees of Mr. J. W. Robinson, in Tazewell County, 

 Illinois, wherein these birds were caught, has been 

 infested by canker worms for six years to such an 

 extent that the orchard looks annually as if fired. 



Under the pressure of little other food, even 

 graminivorous birds -have been compelled to feed 

 on canker worms. Millions must have been an- 

 nually destroyed, but still the annnal destruction 

 to the leaves of the trees goes on. 



To our mind the law is that man must be his 

 own great protector. In the war against insects 

 retail efforts are of little avail. He must either 

 guard his trees so that insect enemies cannot get 

 at them, or wholesale destruction be completely at 

 command. 



Horticultural Directory for 1883, twenty- 



fourth edition. Published at the Journal of Hor- 

 ticulture office, London, England. This gives a 

 complete list of the nurserymen, seedsmen, florists, 

 gentlemen and ladies who have fine gardens, and 

 their gardeners, of England and the " Continent," 

 which seems to include the United States, Japan 

 and the rest of the world outside of the British 

 Isles. As an illustration of how words change in 

 time in different parts of the world, we note that 

 the districts here are divided into "London, Metro- 

 politan and Country." In this part of the world 

 metropolis is the chief city of a country, and Lon- 

 don would be regarded as the metropolis of Eng- 

 land, and metropolitan that which related to the 

 city. But in England, as we judge from the Direc- 

 tory, metropolitan is apphed to the towns and cities 

 for some thirty miles or so surrounding the city, 

 or distinct from the city itself. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



To Intelligent Correspondents. — All eom- 

 munications relating to advertisements, subscrip- 

 tions, or other business, must be addressed to the 

 publisher, 814 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 

 I All referring to the reading matter of the maga- 

 I zine must be mailed to the editor, Germantown, Pa, 

 No express packages for the editor received un- 

 less prepaid ; and marked "Paid through to Ger- 

 ?nantown, Pa." 



Pores in the Annual Layer of Wood. A 



correspondent says : "Will the editor of the Gar- 

 deners' Monthly, please help a reader who 

 somehow cannot make out what he means to say 

 on page 20 of the January number. A cut used in 

 Dr. Houghs' "Elements of Forestry," represented 

 the porous part of the annual layers of oak wood, 

 as the inner part of the layer, that is, as the first 

 formed portion of the annual growth. I under- 

 stood the editor to say, two or three months ago, 

 that the cut was wrong in this respect, and that 

 this porous part, consisting largely of ducts, really 

 belongs to the outer or latest part of each layer. 

 Now, on reading the editorial notes on page 20 of 

 the January number, I can't make out whether the 

 editor means to tell us that the cut was right or 

 wrong in this particular. It must be either one 

 way or the other, and I presume the editor is clear 

 in his own mind about it. But either he has not 

 expressed his mind altogether or else the writer of 

 this inquiry must subscribe himself 



A Dull Reader." 



[The cut in Dr. Hough's " Elements of Forestry " 

 was right in that respect. The editor of the Gar- 

 deners' Monthly was wrong. Ed. G. M.j 



