INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT. 



makes a meal occasionally upon the canker worms. The beak of this bird is much 

 like that of the sparrow or canary, and formed for husking seeds; still I have found 

 his stomach filled to repletion with these troublesome caterpillars. 



The season of 1 864 will be memorable as the year of Aphides, or plant lice. 

 The first crop of leaves on many of the Apple trees was so alive with a species of 

 these pests that most of them fell off, causing also a profuse shedding of the young 

 apples. Warblers of many kinds, then just coming on from the south, Creepers, 

 Wrens, and even Sparrows, as well as many other kinds of birds, fed upon these the 

 livelong day. The throats, and even the back parts of the beaks of some of them, 

 would be found lined with these aphides, many of them still alive, and their stomachs 

 containing a juice that would leave the hands colored as they are after crushing 

 these insects. The creases or folds of the stomachs were lined with what appeared 

 to be an accumulation of the hairs of caterpillars, but under the microscope were 

 found to be the legs of these plant lice thousands and thousands of them. 



The account of almost every insect that will pass under review in the progress 

 of this work, will contain a monograph of some bird that has been found its special 

 enemy. Some will be shown of full size, and in positions exceedingly graceful, 

 illustrating surprising intelligence as to the manner of finding and securing their 

 insect food. 



EXTRACTS FROM DIARY OF 1864. 



" Picus PUBESCENS Dcwny Woodpecker ; Sapsucker. Sp. Ch. A miniature of P. 

 villosus. Above black, with a white band down the back. Two white stripes on the 

 side of the head ; the lower of opposite sides always separated ; the upper sometimes 

 confluent on the nape. Two stripes of black on the side of the head, the lower not 

 running into the forehead. Beneath white ; wing much spotted with white ; the 

 larger coverts with two series each ; tertiaries or inner secondaries all banded with 

 white. Two outer tail feathers white, with two bands of black at end ; third white 

 at tip and externally. Length about 6J inches ; wing 33. Male with red, terminating 

 the white feathers on the nape. 



** Hob. Eastern United States, towards the eastern slope of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains." 



The above is Baird's description of the Downy Woodpecker (the head of which 



