290 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



comb containing the brood*. The wryneck and the 

 woodpeckers, the nut-hatch and tree-creeper, live en- 

 tirely upon insects and their eggs b , which they pick out 

 of decayed trees and out of the bark of living ones. The 

 former also frequents grass-plats and ant-hills, into which 

 it darts its long flexible tongue and so draws out its prey. 

 The woodpecker likewise draws insects out of their holes 

 by means of the same organ, which for this purpose is 

 bony at the end and barbed, and furnished with a curious 

 apparatus of muscles to enable them to throw it forwards 

 with great force. Some species spit the insects on their 

 tongue, and thus bring them into their mouth. In 

 America, the tree-creeper is furnished with a box at the 

 end of a long pole to entice it to build in gardens, which 

 it is found to be particularly useful in clearing from 

 noxious insects. 



Amongst the Grallce or Waders, many of the long- 

 billed birds eat the larvae of insects as well as worms : 

 and they form also no inconsiderable part of the food of 

 our domestic poultry, especially turkeys, which may be 

 daily seen busily engaged in hunting for them, and, as 

 well as ducks, will greedily devour the larger insects, 

 as cockchafers, and in North America Cicadce. Mr. 

 Sheppard was much amused one day in July last year 

 with observing a cow which had taken refuge in a pond, 

 probably from the gad-fly, and was standing nearly up 

 to its belly in water. A fleet of ducks surrounded it, 

 which kept continually jumping at the flies that alighted 

 upon it. The cow, as if sensible of the service they 

 were rendering her, stood perfectly still though assailed 



* Sparrman, ii. 186. 



b See above p. 208. note b . and Bewick's Birds, i. Pref. xxii. 130. 



