73 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



mouth open, on suddenly darting upon a large insect, makes 

 a singular noise, like the twang of a vial string. This sound, 

 produced by the resistance of the air, to one who is unac- 

 quainted with it, is mysterious and sometimes alarming, and 

 has caused the bird to receive the appellation of night-jar. 

 According to Nuttall, one of these birds, on dissection, was 

 found to contain 200 insects in its crop, consisting mostly of 

 small beetles. 



The habit peculiar to these birds of hovering about flocks 

 and cattle, after dusk, in pursuit of the insects that swarm 

 around them, gave rise to the belief that they draw milk 

 from the goats and ewes. This notion seemed to be con- 

 firmed by the singular structure of their mouths. Hence the 

 name of '•' goat-sucker" is applied to the whole whippoor- 

 will tribe, which, like the woodpeckers, have always been 

 regarded with distrust by man. There is no end to these 

 absurdities in the popular notions concerning the habits of 

 birds. 



The mimbers of insects comprised in the Order Coleoptera 

 are immense, as may be inferred from the fact " that between 

 70 or 80,000 species at present exist in the cabinets of col- 

 lectors." When we consider that each of these 80,000 spe- 

 cies contains countless millions of individuals, and that each 

 of these individuals is the parent of several hundred larvae, 

 all of which, parents and offspring, with the exception of two 

 or three species, are destined to consume the living vegetation, 

 root, leaf and branch, we may form some conception of the 

 devastation that might proceed from their unchecked ravages. 



Who would grudge the common robin his feast of cherries, 

 or the blackbird his grains of corn, if he were once convinced 

 that the services of these birds and others are all that can 

 save our crops from destruction and the whole world from 

 famine ? They are profitable servants, who glean a tribute 

 from our orchards and cornfields as the wages of their labor ; 

 and if we could make an exact estimate of the amount of 

 service they perform, we should find that they are abundant- 

 ly worthy of their hire. If the poor bird who is outlawed 

 for a little mischief he is supposed to do, should present his 



