MAMMALOGY AXD ORNITHOLOGY. 283 



tlie warblers hunt for them in and among the foliage. Their food consists 

 entirely of these pests, and they are employed almost continually in their 

 destruction. The family HiruudinidcB, in which are included our swallows, 

 is pretty well known and appreciated in this country, much more so, generally, 

 than any other birds. Indeed, so great favorites are they in some sections that 

 the farmers so far encoui'age them or permit their presence as to pi-ovide com- 

 fortable houses for them, or allow them to nest in their barns and other build- 

 ings. The same remark will apply to these birds as to the Cypselidce, except 

 that the latter are partly nocturnal, and the others entirely diurnal ; their food 

 consists of flying insects which they obtain while on the wing. The cedar 

 bird or common cheny bird, Ampelis cedrorum, (Baird,) is the best known of ' 

 our BotnhyciUidce ; and, taking this bird for the type of the family, so far as 

 habits are concerned, we cannot but say they ai'e beneficial ; for, although in 

 the cherry season this bird is a nuisance to pomologists, it much more than 

 repays all the damage it thus does by destroying myriads of caterpillars and 

 other noxious larvte, besides capturing many insects on the wing. From the 

 first of May until September the cedar bird is found in our orclmrds, where 

 it builds its nest and rears its young ; here it finds an abundance of its favorite 

 food, apple-tree caterpillars. The number of these insects that one of these 

 birds eats in a day is beyond all calculation ; it is for the farmer to watch it 

 for but ten minutes, when he will be satisfied that the destruction of one of 

 these birds on the farm would be a direct loss to him. 



The LaniidcB, in which are included our shrikes (LaniincBj and vireos, 

 ( Vireonhice,) are well known to the agriculturists of the United States. The 

 former sub-family, of which the common butcher bird, CoUiirio horealis, 

 (Baird,) is familiar to all, although destroying great numbers of field mice, are 

 not so beneficial as some of the other birds, from the fact that at least two- 

 thirds of their food consists of beneficial small birds, which they capture on the 

 wing in the manner of the hawks. The vireos constititte the most valuable 

 portion of this family. These birds subsists entirely upon insects, which they 

 destroy both while on the wing, like the true fly-catcher, in the foliage, like 

 the warblers, and on the bark, in the larvoe state, like the creepers, titmice, 

 &c. They generally prefer the solitudes of the forests, but some of the species 

 make their homes in the orchards, where they build their pensile nests in the 

 small limbs of the trees, and rear their young as familiarly and confidingly as 

 some of our most common birds. They should be protected by the farmer. 

 In the great sy intern of warfare which is so apparently existing between the 

 birds and insects, the vireos come next in importance to the warblers and fly- 

 catchers, to which they seem to constitute a grand auxiliary force. 



In the family Liotrichidce are placed our mockingbirds fMimusJ and wrens, 

 (Troglodytes.) It is hardly necessary here to recommend these birds to the 

 farmer, for they are already known and appreciated ; but there is one species 

 in the mocking birds that, in consequence of the antipathy with which it is 

 regarded by nearly all classes, no opportunity is lost to procure its destruction. 

 I allude to the cat bird, Mimus carollnensis, (Gray.) The school-boy always 

 makes it a point to destroy its nest and eggs ; the embryo gunner practises on 

 the bird as an object a little better than a stationary mark ; and the farmers' 

 boys have carte hlanche to shoot it at all seasons, because it takes in cherry 

 time a few of these luscious fruits for dessert to its insect meal. Does the 

 farmer know that this bird is one of his best friends 1 — that its whole life is 

 spent in his service, constantly employed in destroying his greatest enemies, 

 the insects ? Does he know that it will eat in forty-eight hours its own weight 

 of cut-worms and other injurious larvte 1 If so, is not the almost wholesale 

 destruction with which it is followed almost everywhere not only injudicious 

 but wicked ? I leave these f\icts to his consideration, and am certain, when 



