27 



hour the insects decreased rapidly, until just before sunset it 

 was difficult to find any of them. But the birds remaining 

 until nearly dark seemed still to find a few insects on the 

 higher branches. The insects which I secured for identification 

 were liberated or destroyed during the night, probably by white- 

 footed mice which infested the camp. The next morning at 

 sunrise I was unable, after a very careful search, to find a single 

 plant louse on the trees. The birds, however, were still there. 

 They disappeared one by one, but the last bird to linger was 

 more successful than I, for it still found a few, but soon gave 

 up the attempt and left for more fruitful fields. A few insects 

 might have escaped by flight, but the next year I was unable 

 to find a single specimen in the locality. This apparently com- 

 plete destruction of these insects may have been due in some 

 part to the cold of the winter of 1904-05, but the work of the 

 birds was very thorough. 1 



In the year 1900 the introduced destructive pea louse (Macro- 

 siphum pisi) was very prevalent, and was abundant on my farm 

 at Wareham. We expected it to appear in the spring of 1901. 

 The insect came as expected, but failed to increase as it had dur- 

 ing the previous season. We found that chipping sparrows were 

 eating them, and for two years these birds came wherever peas 

 were planted and fed on the insects day after day so long as 

 any could be found. A row of late peas 100 yards in length, 

 an eighth of a mile from where the early peas were planted, 

 became infested with these aphides in August, but the chipping 

 sparrows soon found them and haunted the vines day after day 

 until the insects became so reduced in numbers as to cause no 

 further injury. 2 Probably this habit of the chippy was wide- 

 spread, for Mr. H. W. Olds and Dr. Judd both have observed it. 3 



Every farmer knows that some of the greatest pests of the 

 farm are found among the Coleoptera, or beetles. The leaf- 

 eating beetles are among the most destructive, and of these 

 perhaps the most notorious American species is the Colorado 

 potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) . Every year the 

 farmers of the United States spend an enormous sum for labor 



1 Useful Birds and their Protection, Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 70-72. 



Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, Economic Ornithology Bulletin No. 4, 1920, pp. 

 28, 29. 



Bulletin No. 15, Division of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture 

 1901, p. 77. 



