No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 193 



feeding on brown-tail moths and were doing very effective 

 work destroying the nests of these moths on tree after tree. 



Reports from New Hampshire indicate that large flocks of 

 grackles fed on brown-tail caterpillars during the fall of 

 1911. At that time the young caterpillars were in their webs. 



Dr. Albert H. Tuttle makes the following statement re- 

 garding the destruction of gypsy moth eggs by birds at his 

 place in Billerica, Mass. : — 



Last fall (1911) the boy was trapping skunks. We took the car- 

 casses, hung them up on the trees around the camp, and added some 

 suet and mutton fat from time to time. The downy woodpeckers 

 and chickadees were there all winter long. Nest after nest of the 

 gypsy moth eggs was absolutely cleaned out. Some nests were only 

 partly destroyed. The birds destroyed two-thirds of the eggs that 

 were on the estate. The downy woodpeckers have done most of it. 



Thus far there is no evidence that the destruction of the 

 eggs of this moth by birds has become general, but it is en- 

 couraging to note that the taste for them is increasing. 



The English Sparrow. 

 The so-called English sparrow which has been regarded 

 as a pest, and which certainly is more injurious and less 

 beneficial than most native American birds, already has many 

 friends in this country. It must necessarily have some bene- 

 ficial habits, for practically all land birds destroy pests of 

 some kind. Mr. W. G. L. George of Amesbury, Mass., writes 

 that the sparrow eats more brown-tail moths than any other 

 bird that he knows of. It is a well-known fact that this bird 

 eats both the imagoes and larvae of this insect. Mr. George 

 states that four years ago a large elm tree near his house 

 was infested with " cankerworms." Two pairs of sparrows 

 were rearing their young near by at the time, and Mr, George 

 says that these two families of birds cleaned out the pests 

 completely. He watched the operation from beginning to 

 end. Few people may now remember that this sparrow was 

 introduced for the special purpose of ridding the elms in 

 parks of the geometrid caterpillars, — a service which they 



