THE VEGETABLE FOOD OF BIRDS. 39 



The persistent fruit of the common barberry, which along the 

 New England coast is thoroughly established, ministers largely 

 to the support of the robins, flickers, bob-whites, and ruffed 

 grouse that winter here. Persimmons, hackberries, spice- 

 berries, cranberries, crowberries, sarsaparilla, greenbrier, In- 

 dian turnip, and many other wild fruits are eaten by birds to 

 a greater or less extent, but none of them compare in im- 

 portance with those that have been mentioned. 



THE CULTIVATED FRUITS. 



Of the cultivated fruits, cherries are subject to pilferings by 

 cedar-birds and robins to an irritating extent. Cat-birds and 

 woodland thrushes are less troublesome, on account of their 

 retiring habits. Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries 

 are similarly affected. Currants and gooseberries are on the 

 food list of the robin and the English sparrow at least. 

 Apples are tasted by pine and evening grosbeaks, woodpeck- 

 ers, blue-jays, English sparrows, and ruffed grouse, but the 

 fruit thus molested is usually of poor quality, growing in 

 out-of-the-way places. The grosbeaks eat both seeds and 

 pulp of the apple during their winter peregrinations. In 

 autumn the ruffed grouse frequents the neighborhood of 

 scrub apple-trees in the alder runs as well as in neglected 

 fields, and for a month or so subsists largely upon apple 

 pulp. 



Pears, plums, peaches, and oranges are occasionally tapped 

 by English sparrows and woodpeckers, but none of these 

 has yet acquired the habit of molesting such fruits to any 

 considerable extent. 



On the whole, the harm done by birds to cultivated fruits 

 is of comparatively little consequence, except in some of the 

 special fruit-growing regions. Probably it rarely begins to 

 offset the good done by the birds through the destruction of 

 insects. 



