82 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



resident there having fed them most generously, not only during the 

 winter season, but also in the summer months. Nesting-boxes had been 

 placed for them in most of the trees. Here the trees presented a pitiable 

 sight. Many of the elms and horse-chestnuts were entirely stripped of 

 their foliage — the naked ribs of the leaves of the latter seemed ghastly 

 in their suggestion of fleshless fingers. Nowhere else in the city had 

 1 seen such ravages. 



Passing thence to Pearl and State streets, the same association of 

 sparrows, caterpillars, and their destructive work was seen. Clinton 

 square, where the sparrows had, in their introduction into the city, been 

 specially taken under the care and protection of the residents on the east 

 side of the park, afforded another excellent " test." It was evident that 

 the sparrows were in full appreciation of their privileges, from the almost 

 incredible number sporting among the trees. Their proteges were also 

 in full force. Caterpillars and their cocoons met the eye everywhere, 

 while hanging from the rails and caps of the iron fence surrounding the 

 park were the dead and decomposing bodies of caterpillars, killed by 

 the recent heavy rains (often so fatal to insect larvae), in such numbers 

 that they tainted the air in their vicinity. 



It seems unnecessary to extend this record farther than to add that 

 in other sections of the city, observations made, were in accord with the 

 above. 



How the Sparrows protect the Caterpillars. 



That the sparrows decline to eat the Orgyia caterpillars is not a charge 

 against them : they could not eat them with impunity; the diet would 

 doubtless prove fatal to them. The charge to which they are amenable 

 is this: By the force of numbers united to a notoriously pugnacious dis- 

 position, they drive away the few birds that would feed upon them. Of 

 these we know but four species, viz.: The robin {Merula migratoria), 

 the Baltimore oriole* [Icterus galhula), the black-billed cuckoo {Coccygus 

 eryth'ojitliahmis), and the yellow-billed cuckoo {Coccygits Americanus)- 

 The above species seem, in the ordering of nature, to have been 

 assigned to us for protection from an undue multiplication of a large 

 number of hairy caterpillars of injurious habits. While the naked ones 

 are a tempting morsel to most of our insectivorous birds, they instinct- 

 ively reject tlie others, the hairs of which would fill their stomachs with 

 a mass of irritating and indigestible material. As we often discover in 

 the animal kingdom special provisions for the accomplishment of cer- 

 tain purposes — as for example, the crossed mandibles of the cross-bill 



*This bird has been seen with its head thrust into the web-nest of the tent-caterpillar, 

 eagerly devouring its occupants. 



