10 



JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



beaks use their stout bills for tearing late 

 fruit in pieces to get at the seeds, or pos- 

 siblj' to get at the juicy pulp of the fruit 

 itself. 



A flock of pine grosbeaks usually 

 spends the winter in this neighborhood 

 feeding upon the apples left here and 

 there upon trees. 



Our bobolink so glad and spirituelle 

 with us grows fat upon the rice-swamp 

 of the South, and pays the penalty by 

 coming to the table as the rice-bird. 

 The cedar bird not only crushes the ber- 

 ries of the cedar trees, but is still more 

 fond of cherries, strawberries and red 

 currants, though I think the white cur- 

 rants escape his notice. Two or three 

 years ago, one day in April, several 

 weeks earlier than usual, I saAv a large 

 flock of cedar birds tearing in pieces 

 some apples that hung ungathered on the 

 trees. I suppose the abundance of the 

 apple crop was the very reason for their 

 early return. 



The robin, though known to us better 

 as a swift runner over the lawn and a 

 hunter, cocking its head one side to listen 

 for the earth worm which it carries to its 

 young in such numbers, is still an epicure 

 in fruit, with a well-developed taste for 

 cultivated strawberries, as every fruit- 

 grower knows. The robin is also a con- 

 noisseur in cherries and carefully selects 

 the choicest varieties for its depredations. 

 It distinguishes quickly a black heart or 

 a sweet cherry from the common variety. 



The shrubbery along a river bank with 

 its June berries, choke cherries, black 

 cherries, red cherries, raspberries, and 

 blackberries is a favorite haunt of such 

 birds as cat birds, king birds and war 

 biers. Many an old orchard serves its 

 best purpose now as a home for the birds. 

 Its choicest treasure is the blue-bird's nest 

 deep-hidden in a decayed trunk of some 



tree with a knot hole for its entrance. 

 We have but little conception of the 

 amount of botanical service such birds 

 render by the destruction of insect pests, 

 their eggs and grubs, by destroying thou- 

 sands of hurtful weeds, and by sowing 

 the seeds of useful shrubs. The pulpy 

 useful fruits, berries, cherries, crab ap- 

 ples, and apples have the seeds scattered 

 by the birds, while the hurtful weeds have 

 the seeds so constructed that the part 

 eaten out by the birds destroys the life 

 of the seed. Longfellow's Birds of 

 Killingworth emphasizes the benefit 

 wrought by birds as insect destroyers, 

 while every clearing growing up spon- 

 taneously to useful berries tells how 

 widely their seeds have been scattered, 

 largely by the birds. 



If we could learn the secret of a single 

 winter's work done by a blue jay, of every 

 grub and chrysalis torn from its hiding 

 place, of every hurtful seed destroyed, 

 of every apple torn in pieces and its seeds 

 scattered and sown, we should not be- 

 grudge the busy worker the grain or the 

 corn stolen from granary or bin. 



Even our deep woods have their bo- 

 tanists busy at work in mid-winter, some 

 of them, like the owls, watching for hurt- 

 ful animals or insects to destroy them, 

 others, like ihe crossbills busy in tear- 

 ing cones in pieces for the seed, and so 

 scattering the seed for future growth. 



At the widest possible remove from 

 such life is that of the humming bird, the 

 most beautiful and charming of workers 

 among the flowers, doing double service, 

 at least, probably more, in killing insect 

 pests that its long bill takes so deftly 

 from the recesses of the flower, and in 

 carrying pollen from flower to flower to 

 secure cross-fertilization and thus pro- 

 mote greater vigor of plant life. 



If "Beauty is its own excuse for be- 



