SUPPRESSION OF PESTS BY BIRDS^ — McATEE. 429 



The testimony regarding the activity of the English sparrow in exterminating 

 this pest in cities seems to show rather conclusively that this much disliked 

 bird did actually bring about the destruction of this insect. Nearly every writer 

 on the snow-white linden moth makes acknowledgment to the sparrow and de- 

 clares that the cities owe their freedom from this insect to that bird. 



Most of the records quoted under Lepidoptera refer to the warfare 

 upon larvae by birds, while those under the snow-white linden moth 

 refer in part to the destruction of the adult insects. Lepidoptera are 

 occasionally effectively attacked also in the cocoon or chrysalis stage. 

 F. M. Webster, late of the United States Bureau of Entomology, 

 notes 37 that at Waterman, Illinois, only 2 out of a total of over 20 

 cocoons of the cecropia moth (Samia cecropia) in a small grove of 

 box elders had escaped destruction by hairy woodpeckers {Dryo- 

 bates vUlosus). 



The cocoons and chrysalides of the codling moth also are favorite 

 morsels with many species of birds. It has been ascertained by actual 

 count that in some localities from 66 to 85 per cent of the hibernating 

 larvae are destroyed. Thorough search often fails to reveal a single 

 cocoon, showing that birds have devoured all but the inaccessible 

 larvae and pupae. Mr. A. P. Martin, of Petaluma, California, at- 

 tributes valuable work of this nature in his locality to the red-shafted 

 flicker (Colaptes cafer collaris). He says: 38 



In examining the crevices and bark of the trees for codling moth larvae, I 

 failed to find any where there were thousands last fall. This surprised me, and 

 I thereupon commenced an investigation. I discovered plenty of cocoons, but 

 in every case the former occupant was absent. Being too early in the season 

 for the transformation into the moth, and also finding none of the discarded 

 " skins " or pupa cases usually left by the moth when it emerges, I was at a 

 loss for a time to account for their disappearance. But after looking at 

 both sides the mystery was solved to a degree, for in the scales of bark over each 

 cocoon I found small holes. I send you samples by mail. 



Evidently through these holes the worms had been drawn out. Now the 

 question arises, What made these holes and extracted the worms? My belief is 

 that it was done by a bird whose ornithological epithet I am unacquainted with, 

 but which is variously called " yellow-hammer," " flicker," " high hole,"' etc. 



During the early spring months they were to be seen by the hundreds in my 

 orchard industriously examining the bodies and larger limbs of the fruit 

 trees. I suspected at the time that they were in search of apple worms but did 

 not then know that they could locate the position of the larvae under the bark 

 and dig through after them. What induces me to think that they are the parties 

 to whom the credit is due is that I observed great numbers of them busy 

 around the sheds when I stored my winter apples and pears. They got every 

 worm that they could reach, even picking holes deeply into the wood where 

 there were cocoons in nail holes or crevices in the boards of which the sheds 

 were constructed. 



As the result of several hours' search at various times before the moth" 

 emerged, I found only one worm, and he just escaped by the " hair of the teeth," 

 for there had been several taken out within a quarter of an inch of him. 



37 Am. Nat. 15, pp. 241-242, 1881. 



*> Pacific Rural Press, Vol. XXXIX, No. 23, p. 580, June 7, 1890. 



