FAEMEKS" INSTITUTES. 511 



It is known that he has sometimes eaten span-worms and catterpillars, 

 but such insects are greedily eaten by other birds he drives away. Many 

 insects that he could eat, he never touches, and his very presence lessens 

 the probability of gi-eatest Insect destruction by birds. It is not understood 

 that the idea should be conveyed that the adult sparrow eats no other 

 insects but those mentioned above, but in no appreciable quantity. They 

 pick up such insects as happen in their way, and then too, when the supply 

 of other foods are scarce at that time. 



It is also seen that much of the remnants of beetles and indigestible 

 sections of insects are quite probably taken into the crops more to assist 

 in masticating fruits and grains, than as an article of diet, and much 

 of the contents of stomachs should be so classified. 



We all know that the larvae and adult insects furnish a large diet for 

 the j'oung of birds, but, although singular as it may seem, cases on record 

 show that young sparrows in nests are fed exclusively on partly digested 

 grain, bread and cooked meat for considerable periods at a time, which 

 may be due perhaps to ease of access or overcrowded conditions in large 

 cities. But as this bird has largely changed his food habits since being 

 imported into this country, we might expect him in time to rear his young 

 principally on food aside from insects. 



C. V. Riley, our former National Entomologist, examined over 500 

 stomachs of the sparrow and noted the insects therein. He compared the 

 total amount from all as not equal to the insects found in one stomach 

 of a single cuckoo bird killed at about the same time. 



It was also shown that more than half of the insects found in his crops 

 were beneficial and a large percentage of the remainder were innoxious 

 or harmless species. So that if he is an insect eater, he surely does not 

 consume enough to justify his residence among us, as he is with us every 

 day and does not migrate south or north as other birds do. 



The sparrow did consume his share Avith other birds of large quantities 

 of adult seventeen-year locusts (cicadae), but the State Entomologist did 

 not think it advisable to keep a pest seventeen years to eat locusts two or 

 three weeks in one year. 



FARM BUILDINGS. 



A. D. MOHLER, OF HUNTINGTON. 



[Read before Huntington County Farmers' Institute.] 



In passing through the country an observant person will notice a vast 



difference between the barns and outbuildings on the farms and the homes 



of the owners. As a rule the former are designed for the comfort of the 



farm animals and the convenience of handling the crops, etc., while the 



