INSECTS AFFECTING CURRANTS. 211 



as possible. Another thing-, try to induce as many birds to nest in 

 your grounds as you can. For gardens there is nothing better than 

 the common house wren. It is a bird that is very easily attracted 

 and can be so easily accommodated with a small home. You will 

 be astonished to see how many worms they will eat. I had during 

 the summer eight houses arranged to accommodate the house wren 

 and raised in those eight nests about sixty young ones. The old 

 birds were flying at the rate ot two trips every five minutes to bring 

 food to the young birds, and they kept that going all summer long. 

 The flight of a wren is only over a very short space, so most of that 

 food has be taken right from the immediate neighborhood of their 

 nests. The wrens will never eat the fruit; they eat nothing but 

 insects, and when they are pressed for food they will search for 

 lice. 



Mr. Hartwell: Would you recommend the sparrow? 



Prof. Lugger: I was opposed to the sparrow when it was first 

 introduced in this country, and I was called the "sparrow crank." 

 Yet there is something to be said in favor of the sparrow. Last year 

 I was in Europe, and I investigated the food habit of the sparrow; I 

 watched them with a great deal of interest, and I found in Europe 

 they were not such a pest as they are here; they: do a considerable 

 amount of good there. In Europe on the apple trees, and on the 

 pear and plum trees they have a very minute snoutbilled weevil, 

 and they make it a business to sting the young forming fruit, which 

 in consequence drops. The sparrows have the habit of investigating 

 the flowers to find that insect. 



Sec'y Latham: Could we not have that snoutbill introduced here? 

 (Laughter.) 



Prof. Lugger: We do not have those snoutbills here, and yet the 

 American sparrow still searches for insects that at one time his 

 great-great-great-grandfather used to eat in Europe, and in search- 

 ing for those insects they pick the flowers all to pieces, and that is 

 where the damage comes in. I have seen in Maryland flowers 

 all picked to pieces by sparrows in searching for something imag- 

 inary. 



Mrs. Stager: Will the Professor please give a description of the 

 houses he builds for his wrens. 



Prof. Lugger : I go to some potter and let him make a nice little 

 house with the roof flush on the back so I can hang it against a tree. 

 The opening is made so small that a European sparrow can simply 

 look in and scold, but he cannot get in. There is a little step so as 

 to give the wren a chance to crawl in. The house must be large, 

 because it has a very peculiar habit of building its nest. You 

 would imagine he was bringing in kindling wood for the winter. 

 He brings in sticks about the size of a pencil and then he builds his 

 nest. 



Mr. Bush : Would it not be well to have different openings? 



Prof. Lugger: I hardly think so. They are very pugnacious and 

 would fight. 



Mr. Hartwell : We had some in little marten boxes and the wrens 

 would fill in all around the holes with little sticks across them. 



