24 



to subsist on their natural food supply, will destroy cultivated 

 crops. 



The skunk has the reputation of being the most efficient 

 enemy of the white grub; but here, where both skunks and robins 

 were searching for food, the robin's work was the more effective. 

 The onion and carrot beds were regular breeding grounds of 

 these grubs. The hand cultivator was run frequently between 

 the rows, and robins ran after it. In fact, the robins cultivated 

 those rows more assiduously than did the cultivator. They 

 picked up the insects that were turned up by the cultivator; 

 they dug conical holes around the plants, almost always unearth- 

 ing a grub at the bottom of each hole. This work they persistently 

 followed up, day after day and week after week. So persistent 

 were they that very few of the roots were found injured at 

 harvest time by either grubs or wireworms. Probably some 

 credit for this result must be given to the moles, that occa- 

 sionally burrowed beneath the plants along whole rows, and 

 undoubtedly secured some of these grubs which the robins 

 failed to reach. Throughout the season the robins were watched 

 as they fed their young, and it was seen that they habitually 

 fed grubs, cutworms and many of the most injurious cater- 

 pillars. The larvae of large insects seemed rather to be preferred, 

 and a robin, when going to the nest, often took several insects 

 at each trip. 



While spading a small plot in the garden one day, I watched 

 a robin that came to feed. She picked up a large white 

 grub that had just been turned up by the spade, laid it out 

 upon the unspaded ground, dug out another, laid it beside the 

 first, and after hopping some distance secured still another 

 large one, which she took to the spot where the first two still 

 lay. After several ineffectual efforts, she succeeded in getting 

 a firm hold on all three, when she flew at once to her nest near 

 by, fed them to her young and came back for more. The 

 whole proceeding did not occupy five minutes. These grubs 

 were dug out by the robins wherever they could be found. They 

 took them from compost heaps, from beneath the mulch about 

 the fruit trees, and seemed to know, as if by instinct, just where 

 to find them. It should not be inferred, however, that they 

 found these grubs by instinct. Their skill in finding them was 



