428 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



tion is done, as described in the following account by Mr. J. M. Eheim, 

 of Hutchinson, Minnesota : 



On July 28, 1920, a field of oats was cut on account of the ravages of the 

 army worm. In a very short time a large number of birds came to feed on the 

 worms, including the bronze grackle, yellow-headed blackbird, English sparrow, 

 vesper sparrow, and a few migrant shrikes. 



On August 2 the army worms left the oat field and went to an adjoining corn- 

 field. This field seemed covered with the birds feeding on the army worms. 

 The English sparrows would take two or three worms at a time to feed their 

 young, and by the next day there were neither worms nor birds to be seen in 

 that field. 



Near by was a cornfield, of which about 3 acres were destroyed. There seemed 

 to be no birds in that field. On August 3 they came from the other field, by 

 August 4 there were only a few worms to be found, and by August 8 there were 

 neither worms nor birds on that field. 



The drop worm, or, as now generally called, the snow-white linden 

 moth {Ennomos subsignarius) , seems to be the special prey of the 

 English sparrow. A. R. Grote, a distinguished entomologist, said 34 

 in 1883 : 



Many will recollect that the maple and other shade trees in Brooklyn and New 

 York used to be completely defoliated by the middle of summer by the common 

 brown drop, or measuring worm * * *. The English sparrow rid us of this 

 nuisance ; it ate every one of them. 



John B. Smith, entomologist, of New Jersey, made the following 

 interesting observations 35 on the relations of the sparrow and this 

 insect : 



On the evening of July 17 [1908], Newark, Elizabeth, Paterson, Jersey City, 

 and some of the surrounding towns were treated to a unique experience; a 

 veritable swarm of snow-white moths flying around the electric lights and giving 

 the appearance of a snowstorm in midsummer * * *. On the morning after 

 the flight the sparrows apparently became very busy soon after daylight, and 

 all that was left to mark it was numerous quantities of wings without 

 bodies * * •*. This flight was composed of individuals of the snow-white 

 Eugonia, known everywhere half a century ago as the parent of the " span 

 worm." It was at that time the most abundant and destructive shade-tree 

 insect in the eastern United States, and its caterpillars, feeding upon most of 

 the shade trees, were a nuisance by their habit of suspending themselves by 

 threads from the foliage upon which they fed and dropping upon pedestrians 

 moving beneath. 



These caterpillars were responsible for the introduction of the English spar- 

 rows into this country. So abundant were they and so helpless were the authori- 

 ties against them that the suggestion was made and favorably acted upon that 

 this foreign bird be introduced for the specific purpose of dealing with the 

 " worms.-" The sparrows did their work well. It was not long before the cater- 

 pillars practically disappeared from the cities. 



Glenn W. Herrick, in a bulletin of the Cornell University Experi- 

 ment Station, sums up the evidence as follows : 36 



34 Can. Ent. XV, p. 235, 1883. 



8B Rep. N. J. Agr. Exp. Sta., pp. 317-318, 1908. 



so Bui. 286, p. 62, 1910. 



