BIRD ENEMIES OF FOREST INSECTS 



689 



tree pest. * * * One 

 of the most remark- 

 able phases of this 

 pest were the flights 

 of great swarms of 

 the snow-white 

 moths. * * * In New 

 York City, the effect 

 was compared to a 

 snowstorm in mid- 

 summer. Myriads of 

 moths fluttered 

 about the electric 

 lights. Dr. John B. 

 Smith says that on 

 the evening of July 

 17, Newark, Eliza- 

 beth, and Paterson, 

 N. J., had the same 

 experience. On the 

 morning after the 

 flight, however, noth- 

 ing remained except 

 great numbers of 

 snow-white wings 

 without bodies, show- 

 ing the work of the 

 English sparrow. * * * 

 The testimony re- 

 garding the activity 

 of the English spar- 

 row in exterminating 

 this pest in cities 

 seems to show rather 

 conclusively that this 

 much-disliked bird 

 did actually bring 

 about the destruc- 

 tion of this insect. 

 Nearly every writer 

 on the snow-white 

 linden moth makes 

 acknowledgment to 

 the sparrow and de- 

 clares that the cities 

 owe their freedom 

 from this insect to 

 that bird." 



The writer has seen 

 English sparrows 

 doing the same kind 

 of work on the 



brown-tail moth, the whole pavement of caterpillar pests, such as the fall 

 on blocks near electric lights, being web-worm, the tussock-moth, the cat- 

 littered with the wings of moths whose alpa sphinx and others, but must pass 

 bodies had been eaten. We might to some of the other enemies of trees, 

 continue to enumerate the bird enemies Plant-lice infest trees of almost all 



Yellow Billed Cuckoo 



this is an important insectivorous bird. it specializes on the hairy 

 caterpillars and these constitute about half its food when they 

 can be obtained. fall webworms, tussock, gypsy and browntail 

 moth larvae also are often eaten and the bird is most valuable 

 as a protector of trees 



