THE RED-BACKED SHRIKE 207 



on insects that have taken to flight by the time of its arrival in 

 Britain, seizing sawflies, large moths, such as the yellow underwing, 

 white butterflies, flies, beetles, aphides and other pests on wing. 

 It visits and nests in town parks and gardens, and destroys pests 

 that plague men and animals, or injure wild and cultivated crops. 

 Flycatchers are said to eat cherries and raspberries, but this, as 

 in some other cases of insectivorous birds, is for the living creatures 

 found upon the fruit. 



RED-BACKED SHRIKE. Although young birds, some say of game, 

 may enter into the menu of the shrikes, essential service in de- 

 stroying cockchafers, grasshoppers, dragon-flies and other insects 

 is rendered to arboriculture, agriculture, horticulture and pisci- 

 culture. The prey of these birds is mostly taken on wing, after 

 the manner of the flycatchers. 



SISKIN. What the warblers, frequenting osier-beds and wooded 

 margins of streams, effect in destroying insects, has its reflex in 

 the siskins' feeding largely upon weed-seeds in those localities, 

 though some aver that the birds are a means of scattering seed 

 over the land, ignoring the fact of seeds digested being lifeless. 



REDPOLE. Feeding upon small seeds, such as wild sorrel, knap- 

 weed, plantain and other obnoxious weeds, this bird is useful, 

 and would be more so if bird-catchers were not allowed to capture 

 them on waste places where weeds flourish and " winged " seeds 

 perfect. 



WRYNECK. The ants, " farming " aphides, have no greater 

 enemy, and the pests infesting tree stems and limbs no more 

 assiduous " rooters " out than the wrynecks. 



CUCKOO. For devouring hairy caterpillars, even " woolly 

 bear," and particularly gooseberry caterpillars, combined with 

 all the hairy gentry that feast and fatten on foliage in woods, 

 coppices, hedgerows, fields, fruit plantations and gardens, this bird 

 is unequalled. It also eats flies, beetles, grasshoppers, surface larvae, 

 such as leather-jackets and wireworms, millipedes and molluscs, 

 but its chief food is caterpillars. The young are mostly reared 

 by the foster-parents on smooth caterpillars until they are able 

 to obtain their own food. 



SANDPIPER. This bird is to riversides in summer what the 

 woodcock represents in winter, viz. the destruction of countless 

 worms, molluscs and insects, which are not beneficial to 

 land crops, whatever may be claimed for them in behoof of fish. 



W'OODCOCK. Though confining its attention to woods and 

 thickets by watercourses, swamps, etc., much good is effected 

 by the consumption of worms and molluscs, with larvae of insects, 

 inasmuch as pests consumed there prevents " crawlers " and 

 " fliers " on land correspondingly. But the woodcock feeds largely 

 upon ground some distance from wood and thicket watercourses, 

 even hill downs being visited where formerly underwood or furze 



