1898.] ESSAYS. 41 



birds are apt to be variable in coming to us. The white- 

 breasted Nuthatch gets its name from its well known habit of 

 fastening a nut into a part of the tree and hammering it with his 

 bill to break it, in order to get the grub of the insect inside 

 rather than for simply food itself. 



The Catbird is a common bird of the garden, and is often 

 looked upon as an unwelcome visitor because he enjoys fruit. 

 Experiments have shown that he prefers mulberries to straw- 

 berries and cherries, hence, if Russian mulberries are planted 

 in henyards or pig-pens, the hens and pigs will not only be 

 provided with excellent food, but the Catbird will be attracted 

 thither, in this manner protecting the more valuable fruits. 

 The Catbird arrives about the first of May, and during that 

 month he does valuable service. Ants form eight per cent, of 

 his food ; thousand-legs, ten per cent. ; May beetles, eight per 

 cent. ; ground beetles, eight per cent. ; caterpillars, eight per 

 cent. Through June about the same proportion is maintained 

 of animal and vegetable food. As soon as mulberries, rasp- 

 berries, cherries and strawberries ripen, the birds naturally 

 forsake the dried fruits, that is, those that have dried through 

 the winter. About this time in May one-third of its food is 

 gleaned from berries of the previous summer, — sumach, smilax, 

 and other fruits that have been hanging all winter. As soon as 

 grasshoppers come, grasshoppers and crickets form a large pro- 

 portion of the food, for ten per cent, of all the food taken 

 during the latter part of June is of grasshoppers and crickets. 

 During the first twenty days of July, the Catbird is believed to 

 take the maximum of cultivated fruit. Raspberries and black- 

 berries are the favorites, but by the middle of August these give 

 way somewhat to Ijlack wild cherry, dogwood, and elderberry. 

 The Catbird's food consists of three per cent, of carniverous 

 wasps and wild bees that carry pollen from fiower to flower, but 

 this is counterbalanced by the destruction of weevils, thousand- 

 legs, and plant-eating bugs. Catbirds have a liking for the 

 easily obtainable predaceous ground beetles which are supposed 

 to be beneficial to the farmer, but the loss of these insects is 

 made up for by the destruction of beetles related to the May bee- 



