416 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



cutworms, the army worm, tent caterpillar, gypsy caterpillar, ,) ane 

 buo^s, rose chafer, potato beetle, and the alfalfa weevil. 



The food-habits of the class of reptiles are less definitely known 

 than those of any other vertebrates. So far as snakes are con- 

 cerned it appears that only a few of the smaller species are de- 

 cidedly insectivorous, and they are such comparatively scarce ani- 

 mals that they can have but little effect upon the numbers of insects. 

 The turtles, bein<; chiefly aquatic, are in the same position as the 

 water-loving amphibians — that is, they come in very slight contact 

 Avith insects noxious to man. The lizards are highly insectivorous, 

 but are rather meagerly represented over most of the United 

 States. Some of the western and southwestern species, how- 

 ever, appear to be important enemies of grasshoppers and ants, 

 and to be genera II3' useful as insect destroyers. In hot countries 

 lizards are more numerous, active, and voracious, and have been 

 credited by some writers with being as valuable individually as are 

 insectivorous birds. 



Among mammals we have some highly insectivorous groups as 

 the bats, shrew's, and moles. The exact nature of the food of bats 

 is little known but it includes all sorts of flying insects of sizes 

 these animals can swallow, including mosquitoes, but the latter 

 certainly to no such extent as has sometimes been claimed. Shrews 

 and moles get numerous ants, wireworms, cutworms, and white 

 grubs, and doubtless do more good than harm. The short-tailed 

 shrew has proved to be one of the principal enemies of the larch 

 sawfly and in New Brunswick, it has been ascertained that 40 

 per cent of the cocoons are destroyed by this shrew. Arboreal 

 squirrels sometimes feed freely on scale insects and other tree 

 pests; the western ground squirrels eat quantities of injurious in- 

 sects, such as cutworms, wireworms, and grasshoppers; and the 

 so-called grasshopper mice perhaps deserve their name, and un- 

 doubtedly are more highlj^ insectivorous than the majority of their 

 tribe. The armadillo, which occurs in the United States only in 

 Texas, is a voracious consumer of insects, especially white grubs 

 and their adults, caterpillars, and ants, and the badger occasionally 

 makes a hearty meal of grasshoppers, immature cicadas, or beetles. 

 Of our larger mammals, skunks certainly are the greatest enemies 

 of insects. Army worms, tobacco worms, a nil white grubs are 

 favorite prey of these animals. In INfanitoba, Mr. Norman Criddle, 

 field officer, Canadian Entomological Service, estimated that on one 

 8-acre tract skunks destroyed 14,520 white grubs to the acre. Cut- 

 worms, the i)otato beetle, and grasshoppers are other insect pests 

 eaten by skunks, and the common eastei-n skunk once proved so 

 efficient an enemy of the hop grub in New York, that the first 



