THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



45 



tolerate in any way. We cannot admit of them. The 

 oriole commences with the first fruit that ripens. He 

 takes the cherry, feeds upon that during its season and 

 will destroy a hundred at one meal. Then he talies to 

 the plums. He comes in upon one side of the tree. Al- 

 ways works under cover. After destroying his hundred 

 cherries he flies away, then comes back and destroys an- 

 other hundred. He does not eat so many as he taps and 

 destroys, and that is what we complain of. After he is 

 done with the plums, the grapes begin to ripen. I could 

 not pick a bushel of grapes if I did not destroy these 

 birds. 



Even the Baltimore Oriole, or Hanging Bird, 

 which by the laws of Illinois we are forbidden to 

 kill under a penalty of $5, and which Dr. Trimble 

 says ought to be spared because he eats Curculios, 

 (Fruit Insects, pp. 77 and 85,) is, according to Dr. 

 Hull, no better than he .should be. In a letter to 

 me the Doctor writes as follows respecting this bird : 



I am sorry that I cannot say that either of the Orioles 

 are as honest as they should be. It is the Baltimore Or- 

 iole that our Alton Horticultural Society proscribed. I 

 have had hundreds of them shot [you must be fined one 

 thousand dollars for this, Doctor!], and repeatedly ex- 

 amined their craws, and in no instance have I found cause 

 to suspect that they were smart enough to catch a Curcu- 

 lio. This they mai/ do, however, as I have two or three 

 times found a solitary Pea-bug among the contents of 

 their craws. I have been specially attentive to the 

 habits of this bird, as a destroyer of Noxious Insects ; and 

 am compelled to believe that an energetic Horticulturist 

 will, in one hour, destroy more of our insect enemies, than 

 these birds will do in a whole season. 



Nay, even the Cedar-birds, (Ampelis cedrorum,) 

 which the most enthusiastic Protectors of the Small 

 birds have generally devoted to destruction, as an 

 unmitigated pest, find an advocate in the pei'son of 

 Dr. Trimble, who kindly speaks a good word for 

 them and says that they eat cankerworms. (Fruit 

 Insects, p. 26.) Perhaps they do; but that is not 

 the real question. The real practical question is 

 — How many cankerworms do they eat for every 

 bushel of fruit that they eat or otherwise destroy ? 



Many years ago I saw a Paper by a New Eng- 

 land Naturalist, stating that he had examined the 

 craws of a great number of Robins (Turdus migra- 

 torius), and that they contained vast numbers of a 

 certain larva which he had forwarded to Dr. Fitch, 

 and which was pronounced by that gentleman to 

 be that of the Bibio alhipennis of Say. Hence he 

 drew the inevitable inference which almost all these 

 Bird Protectors jump to, namely that the Robin 

 must be a very useful bird; for he proved, by arith- 

 metical calculations, that it destroyed in the course 

 of the whole season I don't know how many mil- 

 lions of "Bibio albipennis." As, however, he stated 

 nothing whatever respecting the habits and history 

 of this insect, I will now supply the deficiency. 

 Bibio albipennis, or the White-winged Bibio, is a 

 sluggish, slow-flying, blackish, two-winged fly, about 

 the size of a common House-fly, but much slender- 

 er, which swarms in gardens among fruit-trees and 

 fruit-bearing bushes in the spring. Its larva — I 

 have bred hundreds of them to the perfect Ply — ■ 

 lives upon damp dead leaves, and is therefore per- 

 fectly harmless, and so is the Fly bred from it. 

 Consequently, even if the Robin annihilated this 

 insect entirely, it would not benefit mankind. On 

 the other hand, the Robin is confessedly death up- 

 on cherries and certain other fruits. Whether, on 



the whole, this bird be beneficial to the Agricultu- 

 rist, cannot be decided without further and better 

 evidence. In any case we want some more cogent, 

 proof than the Bibio albipennis argument, before 

 we acquit this culprit. 



As to the N. A. Woodpeckers — another bird 

 which the laws of Illinois forbid us to kill — they 

 appear to be divisible into three categories. The 

 great bulk of them feed almost exclusively upon 

 insects, and chiefly upon such species as bore into 

 timber, though a few of these will sometimes eat 

 corn. There are other species which superadd to 

 these habits a propensity for devouring fruits of 

 diifercnt kinds — the golden-winged Woodpecker, 

 Yellow-Hammer or Flicker (Picus auratus), the 

 Red-headed Woodpecker (Picus erythrocephalus), 

 and the Pileated Woodpecker (Picus pileatus). And 

 there is a single species, the Yellow-bellied Wood- 

 pecker (Sphyrapicus varius) — generally known as 

 the " Sapsuckcr," though many writers incorrectly 

 give this name to the innocent Downy Woodpecker, 

 Picus pubescen.s — which bores horizontal rows of 

 holes in the bark of various trees, for the sake of 

 the sappy inside bark which he extracts from the bot- 

 tom thereof.* The first group are universal friends ; 

 the second are obnoxious to the fruit-grower, but 

 otherwise useful ; the last is to be exterminated 

 without mercy wherever he is found, even in the 

 judgment of Dr. Hoy of Wisconsin, who was the 

 first to demonstrate scientifically the very peculiar 

 habits of the species. 



But it does not follow, because a particular 

 species of bird feeds exclusively upon insects, never 

 molesting the Farmer's grain or the Orchardist's 

 fruit, that therefore it must necessarily be bene- 

 ficial to mankind. W^e must prove in addition 

 that it destroys a great many more plant-feeding in- 

 sects, than it does Cannibal and Parasitic insects, be- 

 fore its good character can be considered as firmly 

 established. And this is where the evidence 

 almost universally breaks down, and where a long 

 series of careful experiments is required, before 

 we can arrive at any definite conclusion on the 

 subject. Many years rgo I saw a French work, 

 giving an account of the contents of the craws 

 of a great variety of European small birds, of each 

 of which numerous specimens had been killed 

 and dissected for that express purpose. The author 

 was a zealous advocate for the preservation of birds, 

 but though doubtless a good ornithologist he ap- 

 pears to have known but little about Entomology. 

 For among the noxious insects which he enu- 

 merated with great gusto, as found in the craws of 

 his little friends, he mentioned many species, for 

 example the Ar/rioii or Devil's Darning Needles, 

 which are decidedly beneficial by preying upon 

 noxious insects. Again, no group of birds is 

 more exclusively insectivorous than the Swallows; 

 for they none of them ever touch either fruit or 

 grain or any other crop. At first sight, therefore. 



■*As this fact is still disbelieved by some, and was for- 

 merly disbelieved by myself, it may be as well to add, 

 that Dr. Hull says that he has several times actually 

 found cambium in the bill and in the crop of this bird. 

 (Agric. Sep. 2to. Append, p. 34o.) 



