Vol. XIl-j Recent Literature. 383 



tributaries; a more western center is found near the junction of the 

 Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, while large numbers winter farther west, 

 along the Arkansas and lower Missouri." As Mr. Barrows implies, 

 their winter distribution is largely governed by the food supply ; an 

 unharvested field of corn, as far north as Massachusetts, we have 

 observed, is sure to become the winter feeding grounds for hundreds 

 of Crows, however deep the snow or severe the weather. 



The Bulletin as a whole is a most painstaking and laborious investi- 

 gation, and goes far to settle satisfactorily the economic status of a 

 bird unrelentingly persecuted for crimes that are to a large extent 

 imaginary, or at least grossly magnified. — J. A. A. 



Forbush on ' Birds as Protectors of Orchards.' — Another valuable con- 

 tribution to economic ornithology is Mr. E. H. Forbush's paper on ' Birds 

 as Protectors of Orchards,' recently published in the ' Bulletin of the 

 Massachusetts Board of Agriculture.' ' The paper relates largely to the 

 destruction of the eggs of the canker-worm moth by winter birds, notably 

 the Chickadee {Pants atricapillus), which also feeds in fall on the wing- 

 less females of the same destructive insect. An account is given of an 

 attempt to protect an old and neglected orchard from insect ravages by 

 getting winter birds to make it their haunt by suspending in it pieces of 

 meat, bone, suet, etc. The experiment shows not only that birds can thus 

 be attracted in numbers to a particular area, but that they prove wonder- 

 fully destructive to insect pests infesting fruit trees. Kinglets were 

 found to have eaten largely of bark borers, while Woodpeckers appeared 

 to confine themselves to the larvse of borers, wood-ants, and other insects 

 which bore into the w-ood of the tree. Notes are given on the beneficial 

 work of summer birds in destroying caterpillars and other destructive 

 insects infesting orchards. Winter birds are also shown to be great 

 destroyers of the eggs of the canker- w-orm moth, and of scale insects. 

 "No birds," it is said, "were seen to eat the eggs of the tent caterpillar, 

 nor were any found in the stomach of any of the birds examined. It 

 seems probable that these eggs are so protected by a hard covering that 

 they are not eaten by most birds." While this may be true, the Blue Jay 

 is evidently an exception, as we have found by examination of the 

 stomachs of birds of this species taken in orchards in winter.^ Mr. For- 



1 Massachusetts Crop Report for the month of July, 1895. Issued by Wm. 

 R. Sessions, Secretary State Board of Agriculture. Series of 1895, Bulletin 

 No. 3. Boston, 1S95, 8vo, 32 pp. Birds as Protectors of Orchards, by E. H. 

 Forbush, Ornithologist to the Board, pp. 20-32. 



■^ Cf. Proc. Essex Inst., IV, 1864, p. 75. Also an article by the late Dr. 

 T. M. Brewer on ' The Blue-Jay Family,' published in the Atlantic Monthly, 

 April, 1870, p. 4S2, in which is given a detailed account of the usefulness of 

 the Blue Jay in destroying the larvae of the tent-caterpillar, on the authority of 

 Dr. J. P. Kirtland. 



