PROTECTION BY INSECTIVOROUS CREATURES. 17 



pulses. A large percentage of them would thus be 

 destroyed from season to season, before they reached 

 their particular food-stuff. 



Man may enlist the aid of the natural enemies of 

 these marauders. All insectivorous creatures should be 

 encouraged and protected. Of birds may be named 

 crows, shrikes, woodpeckers, titmice, jays, starlings, lap- 

 wings, plovers, domestic fowls, and guinea-fowls. Insects 

 are kept under by all the woodpeckers, conspicuously the 

 Chrysocolaptes sultaneus, Chrysonotus Shorei, and Brachy- 

 pternus aurantius. The eggs and larvae of insects are the 

 natural food of the Sittinse or nut-hatches, the Certhias or 

 true creepers, and the Parrinae or titmice. The hard- 

 bodied beetles and other Coleoptera are, in their perfect 

 or imago state, eagerly seized while on the wing by 

 shrikes, drongos, crows, rollers, bee-eaters, thrushes, etc. 

 The crow and the myna are the incessant foes of the 

 cricket and grasshopper family. The Cheiroptera, bats, 

 the Insectivora carnaria, and the Viverra, civets, are all 

 insect feeders, and render valuable service to man. 



The Acari and Ichneumonidae are destructive to cater- 

 pillars and grubs ; the ichneumons destroy the larvae of 

 many species of gall-flies. The lady-bird beetles, species 

 of Coccinella, are natural enemies of the aphides. The 

 families Chalcididse, Crabronidae, and Proctotrupidae are 

 parasites. Aphides or plant-lice can be kept under by 

 squirting a solution of soft soap mixed with a decoction 

 of quassia. Traps may be used for caterpillars, baited 

 with their favourite food ; fires may be lighted to stifle 

 insects with the smoke ; the cockchafer (Melolontha 

 vulgaris) may be attracted by a lantern and intercepted 

 with a small mesh net. The adjutant birds, Leptoptilos 

 argala and L. Javanica, and the mongoos, Herpestes 



B 



