184 SMALL ANLMALS AXD INSECTS. [Chap. IL 



tliey eat. Our trees were infested with tlic same kind of ycliowisli bugs that 

 ate the roses, and are commonly called rose-bugs. We have seen half a 

 dozen of them eating upon a single cherry, attacking them before they were 

 ript', and before the birds did. Wlieu at length the robins came in goodly 

 numbers, the bugs decreased, and if the robins ate cherries, they also ate 

 bu£xs, and we believe more than they did cherries. At any rate we had 

 more cherries than the birds and all the family could dispose of, and some 

 for our friends. So we did not begrudge the dear little birds their share. 



As there are some who can not atlbrd to share their cherries with the 

 birds, and others who are nnwilling, we give a way of keeping them off, 

 which we find in the Gat'ckner''s Chronicle, London. 



" The following is a plan I once saw succeed very well for some time, but 

 the birds at last got familiar with it ; still I think it might answer for two 

 months or so. An old gardener being greatly troubled with birds, applied 

 to his master for nets to cover his fruit with ; but no, they would be too 

 expensive. lie therefore got a hawk stuffed in what he called a hovering 

 position, put it on the end of a long wii-e, attached the wire to the top of a 

 tree, and thus had the hawk suspended in the air as if it had been alive. He 

 had, however, another liawk which really was alive jiut into a cage, and had 

 the cage put into the same tree where the dead hawk was. The gentleman 

 in the cage was bj' no means mute, and I may add that I scarcely ever after- 

 ward saw birds in that garden, except perhaps a few sparrows." 



Another plan that has succeeded very well at times is to suspend small 

 looking-glasses, or bits of a broken mirror, to the limbs of the tree. "Wiiere 

 the sun shines, and the wind blows a little, this device answers a good pur- 

 pose. It is of no use at other times, except that having previously frightened 

 the birds, and prevented them from getting a haunt in the tree, they will not 

 be so likely to come when the mirror is still. 



233. The Food of Birds.— A few facts to show M-hat the food of birds really 

 is, will do something, we hope, to dispel the prejudice which has made man 

 their bitter enemy. 



"Wilson, the great ornithologist, computes that a red-winged blackbird 

 destroys, on an average, 50 grubs a day through the summer. Many other 

 birds are equally useful to the farmer. No gold would buy the services per- 

 formed by the birds. One often may be seen following the plowman hour 

 after hour. 



Tlien look at the eternal labor of the birds in fall, winter, and spring, pick- 

 ing np the seeds of weeds, and upon these they live until grain ripens, before 

 it is possible for them to harm the farmer. 



"We therefore nrge farmers to spare the birds. They pay more rent than 

 the worth of all they eat. Robins have been thoroughly proved to be insect- 

 eatei-s, and great destroyers of noxious pests to the farmers, by a committee 

 of the ^[assachusotts Horticultural Society. 



This Society has done a deed worthy of commendation by all the lovers of 

 birds. A resolution was moved to get the Society to ask the Legislature to 



