34 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



berry bushes growing along the hedge, the birds can be 

 found among them feeding on the wild fruit, in company 

 with skulking brown thrashers and catbirds. They are 

 regular seed-eaters, and in the late summer depend chiefly 

 on the seeds that fall from the weeds and the wild berries 

 growing near their coverts. In the first part of the sea- 

 son they feed on the early seeds, and are more insectiv- 

 orous, the insect elements of their food increasing when 

 the nestlings demand their care, as the young subsist 

 almost exclusively on insects and larvae. In the Trans- 

 actions of the Illinois Horticultural Society, 1876, Prof 

 S. A. Forbes reports that his investigations show that 68 

 per cent, of the food of the Dickcissels renders them ben- 

 eficial to horticulture, 7 per cent, injurious, and 25 per 

 cent, neutral, thus leaving a large balance in favor of our 

 summer friends. The boys of the farm should spare their 

 homes whenever possible. 



The Dickcissels leave us in the latter part of August, 

 departing silently and unobserved from the localities in 

 which they appeared at the opening of the season with 

 voices attuned to the increasing chorus of nature, having 

 spent less than three months with us in song and glad- 

 ness, and less than four months in their Northern sum- 

 mer home. It is a wonderful fact that the amatory and 

 maternal instincts of most birds impel them to journey 

 hundreds of miles to temporary homes where they sojourn 

 less than half a year, exhibiting for only a few weeks a 

 spirit of happy content. With the exception of the alder 

 flycatcher and Bell's vireo, the Dickcissels tarry with us 

 a shorter period than any other birds of my acquaintance, 

 and we should accept the generous measure of their merry 

 chanting while they are here, knowing that they will 

 early disappear and leave the hedge more bare to our 

 minds than when they appeared in its summit to execute 

 their first happy chansonettes. 



