166 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



this purpose is bony at the end and barbed, and furnished with a curious 

 apparatus of muscles to enable them to throw it forward with great force. 

 Some species spit the insects on their tongue, and thus bring them into 

 their mouth. In AmericM, the tree-creeper is furnished with a box at the 

 end of a long pole to entice it to build in gardens, which it is found to be 

 particularly useful in clearing from noxious insects. 



Amongst the Grallce or Waders, many of the long-billed birds eat the 

 larvaa of insects as well as worms; and they form also no inconsiderable 

 part of the food of our domestic poultry, especially turkeys, which may be 

 daily seen busily engaged in hunting for them, and, as well as ducks, will 

 greedily devour the larger insects, as cockchafers, aiid in North America, 

 Cicadce. Mr. Sheppard was much amused, one day in July, with observing 

 a cow which had taken refuge in a pond, probably from the gad-fly, and 

 was standing nearly up to its belly in water. A fleet of ducks surrounded 

 it, which kept continually jumping at the flies that alighted upon it. The 

 cow, as if sensible of the service they were rendering her, stood perfectly 

 still, though assailed and pecked on all sides by them. The partridge 

 takes her young brood to an ant-hill, where they feast upon the larvce and 

 pupae, which Swammerdam informs us were sold at market in his time to 

 feed various kinds of birds.' Dr. Clarke also mentions having seen them, 

 as well as the ants themselves, exposed to sale in the market at Moscow, 

 as a food for nightingales.* Latreille tells us that singing birds are fed in 

 France with the larvae of the horse-ant {Formica nifa). 



But the Linnean order of Passeres affords the greatest number of in- 

 sectivorous birds ; indeed almost all the species of this order, except 

 perhaps the pigeon-tribe, and the cross-bill, and other Loxias, more or 

 less eat insects. Amongst the thrush tribe, the blackbird, though he will 

 have his share of our gooseberries and currants, assists greatly in clearing 

 our gardens of caterpillars; and the locust-eating thrush is still more 

 useful in the countries subject to that dreadful pest ; these birds never 

 appear but with the locusts, and then accompany them in astonishing 

 numbers, preying upon them in their larva state. The common sparrow, 

 though proscribed as a most mischievous birtl, destroys a vast number of 

 insects. Bradley has calculated that a single pair, having young to main- 

 tain, will destroy 3360 caterpillars in a week.* They also prey upon 

 butterflies and other winged insects. The fly-catchers (Muscicapa), and 

 the warblers (Motaci//a), which include our sweetest songsters, are almost 

 entirely supported by insects ; so that were it not for these despised 

 creatures we should be deprived of some of our greatest pleasures, and 

 half the interest and delight of our vernal walks would be done away. 

 Our groves would no longer be vocal ; our little domestic favourites the 

 red-breast and the wren would desert us ; and the heavens would be de- 

 populated. We should lose too some of the most esteemed dainties of our 

 tables, one of which, the wheat-ear, is said to be attracted to our downs 

 by a particular insect.* Lastly, insects are the sole food of swallows, 

 which are always on the wing hawking for them, and their flight is regulated 

 by that of their prey. When the atmosphere is dry and clear, and their 

 small game flies high, they seek the skies : when moist, and the insects are 

 low or upon the ground, they descend, and just skim the surface of the earth 



1 Bib. Kat. i. 126. b. 2 Travels, i. 110. 



5 Keaum. ii. 408. * Binglej, ii. 374, 



