84 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



by wiring over all available openings ; using them for food, they being 

 already an article of sale in markets, and said to make an excellent pie ; 

 employing the most efficient means to prevent their living in grain-fields, 

 where their intrusion forfeits their lives* (not protected by law). Still 

 another means has been reported to me as having been resorted to under 

 the provocation of great annoyance and large losses — feeding with food 

 prepared with som.e anaesthetic, permanent in its effects. 



Destrucimi of the Orgyia eggs. — An effectual means of prevention 

 of the Orgyia injuries, so far as it can be resorted to, is the destruction 

 of its eggs. This may be accomplished, to a great extent, by a moderate 

 expenditure of labor. The egg-deposits are conspicuous objects, and 

 at once attract the eye looking for them, until, after long exposure, they 

 become weather-worn and lose their original whiteness. Even then they 

 are not difficult to find, as the cocoons upon which they are placed often 

 occur in patches of a dozen or more. A favorite location for them is where 

 a limb has been cut from a tree and a convenient angle afforded by the 

 overlapping growth of the sap-wood. As many as fifty egg-bearing 

 cocoons have been gathered from a single tree-trunk while standing on 

 the ground, the eggs of which represented twelve or fifteen thousand 

 caterpillars. 



The month of August would be the most favorable time for collecting 

 the eggs from the trunks and larger branches of trees, they being more 

 conspicuous at that time than later. Those out of arm's reach could be 

 removed by poles or scrapers prepared for the purpose. 



* The sparrow has increased greatly during the last ten years [in England] ; great packs 

 of them swoop down on the wheat-fields, destroying more than they consume, spilling it 

 over the ground. Every piece of wheat that I saw this year has had more corn [wheat] 

 destroyed by sparrows than would pay one rent at least. * * * If there are as 

 many sparrows in other parts of the country as there are in Lincolnshire, most certainly 

 one iiiUlion pounds sterling \so\\\A not repay the occupiers of the land for the yearly loss 

 sustained by the depredations of this most quarrelsome pest. * * * They pre- 

 vent the increase of swallows, and have literally driven all our soft-billed insect-eating 

 birds from our gardens and orchards. The fly-catcher has gone ; also the tree-creeper, the 

 peep, the minor warblers, most of which lived on the eggs of moths and butterflies. * 



* * They were found to be feeding upon turnip seed * * * to be 



eating red clover seed * * * for two weeks they ate buds of fruit trees. 

 * * In August, just when the grain begins to ripen, they assemble in vast 

 flocks, and soon corauiit sad havoc in fields of wheat, oats and barley. * * * 



A field of wheat near Isieworth was so utterly ruined by legions of the sparrows which 

 swarm amongst the neighboring villas, that it was left uncut. (Report of Observations of 

 Injurious Insects, by Eleanor A. Ormerod, 1884, pp. 40-42.) 



Such will probably be the habits of the sparrow when it shall have spread over the agricul- 

 tural districts of the United States (at present preferring the larger cities), unless a war of 

 extermination be soon commenced, and continued under the encouragement of liberal 

 bounties offered for their heads. 



In England, at the present time, farmers are resorting to poison as an easy way to re- 

 duce their numbers, and Farmers' Clubs are paying from 3d to 6d per dozen for old or 

 young sparrows or their eggs. 



