ORNITHOLOGY. 367 
bird will destroy fifty grubs daily; even in winter its food is in part 
chrysalides and spiders. A curious observer, watching the nest of a thrush, 
counted 206 visits to feed the young during one day. The grouse and 
partridge often feast their young upon an ant-hill. A family of plovers 
will destroy myriads of grasshopers, taking them in an early stage when 
no larger than fiies. Owls,solemn and innocent as they look,are equal to 
terriers aS mousers. 
Among all our families of birds there are none more decidedly benefi- 
cial to the horticulturist than the Picide. There is not a single specie of 
them (with the exception of one) found in our state, against which any- 
_ thing can be truthfully alleged, which is not a thousand times compen- 
sated for in the direct good done by the bird in the destruction of insects. 
Unlike other families of birds, the woodpeckers prey almost entirely upon 
such insects as damage trees by burrowing through the bark or in the 
wood. They are constantly laboriously seeking insects in the bark of 
trees,one variety only being accused of boring the green bark to feed upon 
its juices; yet the ‘‘sapsuckers”’ have many friends to assert their innocence. 
Wrens and creepers hop from branch to branch, or creep along the larger 
limbs, seeking their favorite food. Jays, crows, nighthawks, and whip- 
poor-wills destroy immense quantities of beetles. 
The robin and red-winged blackbird obtain their food almost exclusively 
from the ground, and quails have been seen to forage recently planted 
fields systematically in sections, and upon shooting a specimen no grain 
has been found, but mostly cut-worms and other insects. 
The sparrows and finches are understood to live mainly upon seeds, but 
they feed their young entirely upon the larve of insects. 
The gramnivorous birds are insectivorous in early life. A single pair of 
Sparrows is reported to have carried to the nest five hundred insects in an 
hour; at that rate making about six thousand a day. 
There are many birds with bad reputations in popular estimation, that 
are deserving of consideration instead of execration. Among these is the 
crow. He is well worthy of defence. He is shy and suspicious, but fre- 
quents flelds and meadows, exhuming worms and larve with instinctive 
facility. His food is mainly animal and not vegetable, and he will eat but 
little Corn at a time, however abundant. He will follow the plow for the 
large white grub, the larve of the May beetle. He is an industrious de- 
stroyer of the larve of the cockchafer, as is also the purple grackle, the 
red-winged blackbird and the meadow lark. Crows have been proscribed 
by state legislation, and insects have increased in proportion as the corvus 
family has been exterminated, the insects proving to be unendurable 
pests, while the bird is.accustomed to take a moderate toll from the grain 
so well protected. 
The blackbird, so much abused, is voracious in the consumption of 
grubs obtained from newly plowed ground by adextrous practice of boring. 
The cherry bird is, in cherry time, voted a nuisance, but those who have 
observed carefully assert that he takes only those with worms in them. 
But this point is stoutly contested by the losers of cherries, and good 
evidence produced. 
The woodpecker, poor drudge, ever digging for a living, unrespited and 
patient, does an important service for the farmer, as he drives into the 
wood his chisel-shaped bill, propelled by powerful muscles acting upon a 
