64 USEFUL BIRDS. 



rences may lie gleaned from European records. Samuels 

 writes that in Pomerania in 1847 an immense forest that was 

 in danger of being utterly ruined by caterpillars was very 

 unexpectedly saved by Cuckoos, which, though on the point 

 of miOTatins:, established themselves there for some weeks, 

 and so thoroughly cleared the trees that the next year ' ' neither 

 depredators nor depredations were to be seen." ^ He also 

 speaks of a European outbreak of the gipsy moth [Portlietria 

 dispar) in 1848, saying that the hand of man was powerless 

 to work oft* the infliction, but that on the approach of winter 

 Titmice and Wrens paid daily visits to the infested trees, 

 and before spring had arrived the eggs of dispar were en- 

 tirely destroyed. This account agrees with the following 

 translation from Altum : — 



In the year 1848 endless numbers of the larva? of Bombyx dispar had 

 eaten every leaf from the trees of Count A^^odzicki, so that they were 

 perfectly bare. In the fall all the branches and limbs were covered 

 with the Qgg^ clusters. After he had recognized the impracticability of 

 it, he gave up all endeavor to remove them by hand, and jirej^ared to 

 see his beautiful trees die. Towards winter numerous flocks of Titmice 

 and Wrens came daily to the trees. The egg clusters disappeared. In 

 the spring twent}' jiairs of Titmice nested in the garden, and the larva 

 plague Avas noticeably reduced. In the year 1850 the small feathered 

 garden police had cleaned his trees, so that he saw them during the 

 entire summer in their most beautiful verdure.^ 



According to Reaumur, these larvae were so extremely 

 numerous on the limes of the AUe verte at Brussels in 1820 

 that many of the great trees of that noble avenue were nearly 

 defoliated. The moths swarmed like l)ees in the summer. 

 They were also very numerous in the park, and if one-half 

 the eggs had hatched in the following spring, probably scarce 

 a leaf would have remained in these favorite places of public 

 resort. Two months later, however, he could scarcely dis- 

 cover a single Qgg cluster. This happy result was attributed 

 to the Titmice and Creepers, which were seen busily running 

 up and down the tree trunks.^ 



' Agricultural Value of Birds, by E. A. Samuels. Annual Report of the 

 Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1865-66, pp. 116, 117. 



= Translated from Forstzoologie, II, 1880, p. 324. 



^ Reau. i .387. Cited by Kirby and Spence in their Introduction to Entomology, 

 1857, pp. 117, 118. 



