Miyyesora Srate HorticuttvraL Socrery. — 93 
: 
How many persons are aware that the young Robin, while yet confined to the 
nest, eats forty-one per cent. more than its own weight of worms every day. 
“If laid end to end the length of these worms would be about fourteen feet, or 
ten times the entire length of the intestines? Man, at this rate, would eat about 
seventy pounds of meat, and drink five or six gallons of water, beer, whiskey, 
or something else every day to say nothing about the nights. As there are four 
young usually of the robins, and they bring out three broods each summer, a 
faint idea of the usefulness of this species may be obtained. Now, multiply the 
friends of the various interests of horticulture, agriculture, and so forth, by the 
numbers and proportionate size of all the insectiverous birds which rear their 
voracious broods within the limits of ovr State, and who is sufficient for the com- 
putation ? 
It is truly a ‘‘penny wise and pound foolish’’ philosophy that grumbles at the 
toll these friends levy upon our fruits and grains, when the great supply of their 
insectiverous food has been exhausted. 
To return to our observations of the migrations of birds, we must divide our 
attention with the Tree Sparrows that have joined the others in celebrating the 
sun’s transit across the Equator. On the partially denuded plowed field, along 
‘the roadways, and in the weedy patches where the potatoes have been grown, 
they are sometimes innumerable. Amongst the leafless trees in the openings 
and thickets they are more scattered or broken into small parties. They breed 
about the head of Lake Superior and migrate to the south again in the latter 
part of October. Sometimes they remain in small flocks all the winter. 
Now begin to look for the Pigeons, in their long, sweeping lines of flight. 
But for want of more opportunity, we would follow them in all their habits 
during the entire season. Their modes of flight, feeding, nesting, rearing their 
. young, consisting of only one individual at each of three and sometimes four sit- 
tings. Wilson, one of the most conscientious ornithologists that history has any 
record of, computed the numbers of one flock of these gregarious birds in their 
flight. He estimates their numbers upon an average of three to the square yard, 
their movement at a generally accepted velocity, and the length of time they 
were in passing a given povnt, and found the flock to contain no less than two 
billions two hundred and thirty milhons two hundred and seventy-two thousand 
pigeons. This estimate he assures us was so far short of the actual number that 
no question could arise to the contrary. Now, let us pause a moment to inquire 
how much food would be required for the supply of tnis feathered host just one 
day. The answer to this question will afford a clew to the reason why they are 
provided with a form, wings and instincts that bear them along at the speed of 
sixty to ninety miles per hour. Caged pigeons are known to eat at least a half 
pint of acorns, nuts, &c., to each individual in twenty-four hours. If we adopt 
this ratio, it gives us a daily gequirement of seventeen millions four hundred and 
twenty-five thousand bushels to supply Wilson’s flock. These are not conjectures 
of the tancy but the sober facts of science, and an illustration of the truth of the 
old adage that “‘truth is stranger than fiction.” 
The season of migration having now been so far opened, the influx of various 
species is so great that to notice them separately would be impossible. We must 
be content to merely glance at them in groups. March has scarcely gone when 
ducks, geese, swans, pelicans, cranes, gulls, and but little later, herons, stilts, 
godwits, sandpipers, curlew, snipe, plover, and in short all the waders and 
swimmers, embracing mud hens, grebes, galinules and woodcock, are all here, 
denizens of different localities in the State. It will tax the naturalist to his 
