SUPPRESSION OF PESTS BY BIRDS McATEE. 421 



grubs. The robins worked so diligently that practically no grubs escaped. A 

 few that had come to maturity emerged from the sand as beetles and dis- 

 appeared, but apparently the birds got all the rest, and as a result the vines 

 set this year nearly all survived. 



Among the most injurious groups of beetles are the weevils. 

 They are eaten in large numbers by practically all insectivorous 

 birds, and we have one record of local suppression of an invasion 

 of weevils. Mr. John G. Tyler, of Fresno, California, says: 



One spring vast numbers of rose beetles (Aramigus fulleri) invaded the 

 country about Clovis [California], and after destroying the rose flowers 

 they took to the vineyards, doing considerable damage to the foliage by boring 

 numerous holes through the leaves, causing them eventually to wither up and 

 drop off. Every day for nearly a week a great flock of Brewer blackbirds 

 hovered over a certain vineyard that I had an excellent opportunity to observe. 

 Crawling over the branches or alighting on the topmost shoot, these black- 

 plumaged birds were conspicuous objects against the green of the tender new 

 foliage. As a result of the efforts of these birds, in a short time the vineyard 

 was almost entirely free from the beetles. 



LEPIDOPTERA (BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS). 



The Lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths, include a large number 

 of destructive species, many of them ranking among our worst pests. 

 The adults are eaten in numbers by only a few birds, but their imma- 

 ture stages, caterpillars and chrysalides, especially the former, are 

 staple bird food. Hence it is not surprising that a large number of 

 cases of local suppression of lepidopterous pests have been observed. 

 One of the most injurious of these insects, the orchard tent-cater- 

 pillar {Malacosoma americana), seems especially subject to destruc- 

 tive onslaughts by birds. J. P. Kirtland notes 20 the blue jay as an 

 effective enemy near Cleveland, Ohio. He says : 



Soon after they [the blue jays] had emigrated to my evergreens I one day 

 noticed one of the birds engaged in tearing open a nest of the bagworm [CUsio- 

 campa americana] on an apple tree. Thinking the act was a mere destructive 

 impulse, I was about walking away when the bird, with its bill apparently filled 

 with several living and contorting larva?, changed its position to a tree close 

 by where I was standing. * * * Its next removal was to an adjacent black- 

 spruce tree, where I could plainly see it distributing the captive bagworms to 

 sundry open and uplifted mouths. 



From this hint I was led closely to watch the further proceedings of the com- 

 munity. Before the young birds had passed from the care of the parents most 

 of the worms' nests had been broken into, many were torn into threads, and the 

 number of occupants evidently diminished. Two or three years afterwards 

 not a worm was to be seen in that neighborhood, and more recently I have 

 searched for it in vain, in order to rear some cabinet specimens of the moth. 



20 Atlantic Monthly. Vol. XXV, pp. 483-484, 1870. 



