102 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



. Different families of birds are adapted to various purposes ; bul 

 those that inhabit our woods and frequent our farms and dwell in 

 the neighborhood of man, are mostly those that live upon insect! 

 and worms. And there can be little doubt but the increasine^ 

 ravages committed every year by injurious insects may be attrli, 

 buted to the destruction of those birds which eat them. Th 

 family of " woodpeckers" are provided with a bill fitted to exlrac' 

 the grubs from trees. They walk up and down the body of tht|l 

 tree, prying into every crack in the bark, picking up every littllj 

 worm they see, and probing each hole the grub has made, to fimti' 

 their prey. But they have nearly disappeared before the guns o 

 the rascally, idle boys. And to this cause we may probably la; 

 the growing destruction of forest and fruit trees by the boring iiwj 

 sects. These birds were very abundant in our boyish days, bu 

 we see no more of them now, from the big " red-head" in th 

 forest and orchard, down to the little *' chickadee" in the doOiw 

 yard. 



The common caterpillar that lives on the apple and cherry trei , 

 is increasing in numbers every year, and doing an immensity (W 

 injury ; and the farmer or the fruit grower is called upon to dc 

 stroy them with his own hands. The birds — their natural enemy- ,-- 

 have disappeared. We have seen, this spring, thousands of tre*<f||' 

 entirely stripped of their leaves by these insects, and on the Ian 

 attached to one country seat in the county of Westchester, we sai « 

 a row of nearly a hundred wild cherry trees covered with the^!^ 

 nests, and not a leaf. The common robin has been often seen 1 

 sit by these nests and eat the caterpillars from them ; and we aif 

 informed by a gentleman that a pair of wrens that had built a ne| 

 in a knot-hole in the side of his house, were seen for one whof 

 day carrying these insects from a web in a neighboring tree, i 

 their young. We have seen the bluebird do the same with t\ 

 black caterpillar that feeds on the elm. But these harmless 'a; 

 useful birds have not escaped the young sportsman, and the orcl' 

 ards must suifer the consequences. 



The "Maybeetle" that feeds upon the leaves of the chen 

 tree, does great damage to the fruit grower. 



The following curious calculation will show the value of ev< 

 one pair of these insect-eating birds to the farmer. It is taktf, 

 from " Anderson's Recreations :" 



