GEXI-:R.\L PRACTICE. ENEMIES. 297 



currants, and raspberries, but feeds on ground insects during the greater part of the 

 year. Blackbirds and thrushes for two-thirds of the year or more destroy vast numbers 

 of ground insects. 



The starling pursues a most useful life, feeding on worms, grubs of various insects, 

 flies, beetles, slugs, and snails. The common creeper searches tree trunks and branches 

 closely for predatory vermin. The nut-hatch frees trees of boring insects and larva*, 

 adding nuts to its insect food ; and woodpeckers continually hop about the trunks and 

 branches of trees and capture insects or their larva?. Swallows, martins, and swifts 

 clear the air of myriads of flies, and the night-jar devours nocturnal beetles and moths. 

 The cuckoo visits gardens and orchards early and late, clearing trees and bushes of 

 caterpillars. The willow- warbler, or yellow wren, is purely insectivorous; it arrives 

 the first and leaves the last, its merry song and useful life never being over-estimated 

 by the fruit grower. The garden warbler feeds chiefly on flies and insects, but takes 

 some fruit ; and the black-cap warbler rears its young entirely on caterpillars. The 

 wood- warbler searches for the leaf-rolling caterpillars, and, like the common redstart, 

 pursues insects on the wing. Fly-catchers render essential service in destroying swarms 

 of noxious insects. Larks protect the surface of the soil, assisted by wagtails, the food 

 of which consists mainly of insects. The inestimable good of several birds only requires 

 to be known to the fruit grower to insure their preservation and increase. By sparing 

 such birds, noxious weeds and insects decrease, vegetation flourishes, and much fruit is 

 saved. 



Hares and Rabbits. The hare (Lepus timidus) is a watchful, timid creature, 

 defenceless, yet alert and fleet in escaping from its enemies. Hares are very fond of 

 the bark of young fruit trees, which they sometimes entirely girdle, but more commonly 

 tear off in strips, often from a number of trees in a night, evidently testing them for the 

 most savoury meal. The common rabbit (Lepus cuniculus), with its sharp, chisel-like 

 incisor teeth, does much injury to trees by stripping them of their bark. Wire netting 

 30 inches high excludes rabbits, when it is let into the ground a few inches to prevent 

 their burrowing under it. In snowy periods the netting assists the snow drifting, and 

 rabbits and hares pass over ; then it is no common occurrence to have several fruit trees 

 barked completely round in a single night. This has happened more than once in our 

 experience, and trees were only saved by the expedient of bridging ^over the gap 

 between the two barks with scions, as represented in Fig. 93, p. 299. 



Two or three scions were placed on each tree by whip-grafting. The scions were 



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