44 



potato beetle, and will clear the vines of this pest. Some ducks 

 eat this insect. Mr. E. H. Kern of Mankato, Kan., writes 

 that his ducks cleared the bugs from the potato field. So far 

 as his experience goes, all ducks like these insects, and seem 

 to grow fat by feeding on them. 1 



Chickens will destroy the maggots of the common house 

 fly, and thus prevent the increase of this pest. Dr. Howard, 

 chief entomologist of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, tells us that these flies breed chiefly in horse manure, 

 and also in human excreta. 2 He tells how to prevent their 

 increase in vaults and manure piles by the use of chloride of 

 lime. We find that a few chickens confined where they can 

 scratch over the stable manure are effective, and less expensive 

 than the chloride of lime. They will spend much time scratching 

 and digging over this manure, looking for partially digested 

 grain, seeds and maggots. This scratching fines up and dries 

 out the manure, rendering it an unfit breeding place for flies; 

 but if any maggots appear, they are soon eaten. 



While there are some insect pests that are not eaten to any 

 extent by either wild birds or poultry, most of them may be 

 controlled by one or the other. Young chickens, and even 

 mature fowls, eat a great many weed seeds. Fowls may be 

 used to take the place, in a measure, of the wild turkey, par- 

 tridge, heath hen, wild pigeon and quail, once plentiful in Massa- 

 chusetts, but now in one case exterminated and in the others 

 altogether too rare. The man who raises one thousand chickens, 

 five hundred ducks and a few turkeys each year, has under 

 control a police force sufficient to check any invasion of such 

 grass, grain or garden insects as poultry will eat; but we must 

 still depend largely on the wild birds to hold the tree-inhabiting 

 insects in check. 



1 Insect Life, Vol. III., p. 398. 



J Circular No. 35, second series. Division of Entomology, United States Department 

 of Agriculture. 



