CONTROLLING INSECTS 



201 



birds, song-sparrows, and wrens gathering insects for their 

 young. The woodpeckers, nuthatches, and brown creepers 

 search up and down the trees for the eggs and young of in- 

 sects destructive to trees and peck holes through the bark to 

 dig out borers. The vireos, orioles, and warblers search the 

 foliage for worms and destroy 

 countless numbers. The cuckoo, 

 or raincrow, destroys the tents of 

 the tent-caterpillar; the catbird, 

 brown thrasher, and thrushes get 

 insects from the ground and from 

 the trees. No more useful insect- 

 destroyers are to be found than 

 the quail and the meadow lark, 

 yet farmers often allow these 

 birds to be killed by sportsmen. 

 It would take an entire book 

 alone to tell all the useful habits of our common birds. Each 

 needs to be studied carefully and protected. 



Snakes are unpleasant animals, but nearly all of them are 

 destroyers of large numbers of insects. The garter-snakes 

 and blue racers are most common and most effective. How- 

 ever, they destroy many toads, and the toad is probably more 

 ejffective than the snake and much more pleasant. 



Toads live entirely on insects and catch great numbers of 

 them. It has been estimated that a single toad is worth nearly 

 twenty dollars a season in a field or garden. It is said that Eng- 

 lish gardeners often pay twenty-five dollars a hundred for toads 

 to put into their gardens.* They will eat practically any kind 

 of insect. They are said to be a sure remedy for cockroaches. 

 * Farmers' Bulletin, No. 196. 



36. A PARASITIC INSECT 



This one destroys tree borers 



By courtesy of the Indiana 



Experiment Station 



