VALUE OF BIRDS AS INSECT DESTROYERS. 24-J 



THE VALUE OF BIRDS AS INSECT DESTROYERS * 



BY PLKTCHER M. NOE. 



Probably few subjects have interested the agriculturist of late years as much as 

 the ever important one, as to whether birds are a friend or foe to his growing crops 

 and fruit. A great deal has been written both for and against the preservation of 

 birds, some writers thinking that the amount of fruit destroyed by them more than 

 overbalances any good they may do as insect destroyers, while others hold that the 

 amount of fruit destroyed is comparatively small when compared with the amount 

 of injurious insects destroyed. 



My own investigations have proved that the latter view is substantially correct 

 and especially so with the "i-obin," to whom my investigations have principally 

 been directed. Perhaps no bird is better known to the farmer than he, being one 

 of our first arrivals in spring, ( many of them reaching here in the early part of 

 of March), he is the last to leave in the fall, often remaining until the ground is 

 covered with snow before taking his flight southward. In early spring he can be 

 seen hopping around over the freshly plowed ground, eagerly watching for any un- 

 wary angle worm who has been unfortunate enough to have been exposed to sight 

 by the farmer's plow, and from the number of times the brownish black head 

 pounces down into the earth it is reasonable to suppose that his breakfast is not a 

 poor one. By actual experiment it has been shown that a young robin requires 

 consiiderably more than his "own weight" of animal food every day, and during 

 the season of rearing their young, the old birds forage almost exclusively on insects 

 while it is true that the robin will feed upon seeds and berries when insect food is 

 not well obtainable. The following list of insects which I obtained by the careful 

 dissection of upwards of thirty robins during the past summer, will show what a 

 benefit tiie robin is: The insects noticed were the Corn Worm ( Gortyra Zeal), 

 Apple Borer ( Printharia Pomella), Corn Root Worm, Diabrotica Longicornis 

 (Say), Ground Beetle, ( Lachnosteuna Quereina), Measuring Worm ( Geometra 

 Catenoria), and also the larva; of the well known Cabbage and Sulphur Butterflies. 



The stomach of one adult robin, examined by Clarence M. Weed, of the Michi- 

 gan Agricultural College, contained such a striking instance of the beneficial influ- 

 ence of the bird that I notice it here. The bird in question was shot between a row 

 of cherry trees and raspberry bushes, both in bearing, and but a few rods apart. The 

 stomach was almost wholly filled with the injurious larvae of the family anthomyiidae. 

 This is the family to which belong the notorious cabbage and radish flies, which in 

 many places have stopped the cabbage production, with a consequent loss of thou- 

 eands of dollars annually. By actual count there were sixty of these anthomyian 

 larvae in the single stomach. Yet many a horticulturist asserts that robins eat no 

 insect food in berry seasons. If any one doubts the assertion that robins do BOt 

 subsist principally on insects, let them try the experiment of trying to raise a young 



* Read before the Aanual Agrioultural Coarention, Jaaaary 8, 1S35. 



