INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 289 



woodpecker also draws insects out of their holes by 

 means of the same organ, which for this purpose is bony 

 at the end and barbed, and furnished with a curious 

 apparatus of muscles to enable them to throw it for- 

 wards with great force. Some species spit the insects on 

 their tongue, and thus bring them into their mouth. In 

 America, 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 larvae 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 Melolonthae, and in North America TettigonicB. 

 Mr. Sheppard was much amused one day in July last 

 year 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 alight- 

 ed 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 larvae 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 



" Bib. Nat. i. 12C. b. " Travels, i. 1 10. 



VOL. I. U 



