What Birds Do for Us 



gather cocoons in the autumn are often disappointed 

 to find so many already empty. They forget that 

 thousands of hungry migrants have been out hunt- 

 ing every morning before they left their beds. No 

 cradle yet woven is too tough for some bird to tear 

 open for the luscious, fat morsel within. To the 

 Baltimore oriole looking for a dinner, the strong 

 cocoon of the great cecropia moth 

 yields one as readily as another; 

 and I have watched an orchard 

 oriole that brought her 

 young family to feast in 



The cecropia moth's large, 

 strong cocoon must like- 

 wise yield its contents to 

 the oriole 



a tamarix bush in the garden, pick forty-seven 

 basket-worms from their cleverly concealed baskets 

 in fifteen minutes. 



But how the bright berries, hanging on the dog- 

 wood, mountain ash, pokeweed, choke - cherry, 

 shadbush, partridge vine, wintergreen, bittersweet, 

 juniper, Virginia creeper, and black alder, cry aloud 

 to every passing bird, "EAT ME," like Alice's mar- 

 malade in Wonderland ! Many plants depend as 

 certainly on the birds to distribute their seeds as on 



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