INTRODUCTION TO BIRDS. 257 



of bird songs, as our summer friends come flocking back to 

 the meadows, fields, gardens, and orchards that need them 

 so badly. 



The insectivorous birds, in their search for daily food, 

 explore different regions. The swifts and the swallows 

 have the air for their hunting grounds, the swallows often 

 hunting flies and gnats far into the twilight. Night- 

 hawks and whip-poor-wills take up the hunt after night- 

 fall. The flycatchers, in their dun-colored coats, will 

 sit in the shadows of tree or bush, ready to dart out at a 

 passing insect, or they have been known to locate a gnat 

 swarm and sit with open mouth in the path of the flying 

 swarm, filling their crops to overflowing. Warblers 

 explore the circumference of herb, shrub, or tree, picking 

 off leaf -eating insects. The vireos do police duty on the 

 underside of leaves and in out-of-the-way corners. The 

 woodpeckers and the brown creepers take up the chase on 

 the tree trunks and the larger limbs, exploring every 

 inch for some flat-headed or round-headed borer, for ants, 

 or insect eggs. A woodpecker can get himself a fairly 

 good meal out of a telegraph pole, but he will do better 

 service on an elm tree. The orioles, the cuckoos, and the 

 blue jays delight to hunt for caterpillars, hairy and smooth, 

 in and out among the foliage and fruit, where worms may 

 be found eating leaves or curled up comfortably in some 

 blossom. Such sparrows as are winter residents live off 

 weed seeds principally, while the summer residents of the 

 tribe are for the most part ground feeders, and find a rich 

 harvest in insects and seeds near the ground. Aquatic 

 birds help the dragon flies eat the mosquito larvae; or 

 occasionally there is found a bird shrewd enough and 

 quick enough to turn the tables and eat the dragon flies. 

 Along our sea-coasts, aquatic birds do great service as 



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