434 ANNUAL BEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



given by Mr. S. T. Kimball, of Ellington, Conn., who states that 

 '" The oriole has cleaned my currant bushes of the currant worm *^ 

 for the past few years." 



DISCUSSION 



In the foregoing remarks are summarized 109 cases of control 

 and 88 of local suppression of insects by birds. Neither of these 

 figures is exact on account of the impossibility of reducing to 

 numbers such expressions as: "Several times the birds were ob- 

 served to clear up " certain infestations, or " many fields were kept 

 clean," and the like. However, the exact number of recorded cases 

 is a matter of little concern, as it can have no sort of close approach 

 to the number that really occur. Consider, for instance, the cases 

 of almost complete destruction of termite swarms by English spar- 

 rows that tlie writer has personally observed. These were three in 

 number, and the locality of one was a telephone pole in an alley 

 near the Bureau of Chemistr}'^, of another a court of an apartment 

 house on Park Road, where some porch timbers were the breeding 

 place of termites, and of the third his own backyard in a suburb, 

 where the lowermost riser of a flight of steps was tlie nursery of the 

 white ants. Now, these are three widely separated spots in and near 

 a city of considerable size; and the writer only by chance happened 

 to be at each during the very brief period when it was possible to 

 make the observation. In a city the size of AVashington hundreds 

 of such incidents must occur every season unobserved ; in a thousand 

 cities in the range of white ants, and in rural districts where the 

 termites are subject to attack by numerous kinds of birds, there must 

 be multiplied hundreds of cases. This, too, for only a single kind 

 of insect; multiply again by the vast number of insects birds attack, 

 over any one of which they may at times exercise local control, and 

 it is evident that the number of cases occurring in the United States 

 annually must run into the millions. 



After this statement the reader may think that the author's en- 

 thusiasm as an ornithologist has overbalanced his judgment. To 

 assure neutrality of opinion, therefore, let us leave the doings and 

 sayings of ornithologists in abej'ance and appeal to the entomolo- 

 gists again. 



In writing about the migratory locust Dr. C. V. Riley, former 

 Chief of the United States Bureau of Entomolog}-^, said : 



While little practically can be done by man to further the multiplication of 

 the more minute enemies of the locust, much may be done to protect and to 

 promote the multii)lication of the larger animals, especially the birds. These 



" Pteronus rlbesti. 



