RELATIONS OF BIRDS TO ORCHARDS 



287 



sects, leaf hoppers, and many other true bugs suck out the 

 sap ; leaf miners of many sorts mine the leaves ; while 

 beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, and numberless caterpillars 

 devour the blades. 



Set over against these myriads of leaf-feeding insects, 

 we find the great majority of our familiar birds. Watch 

 the birds in an orchard on a summer day and you will be 

 convinced of their great value 

 as insect destroyers. If you 

 are keen-eyed and patient, 

 you will see the warblers and 

 other smaller birds searching 

 leaf after leaf for aphides and 

 tiny caterpillars, while vireos, 

 bluebirds, robins, thrushes, 

 sparrows, cedar birds, cuckoos, 

 catbirds, blackbirds, and others 

 are devouring the larger en- 

 emies. If you watch these 

 birds at their nests, you will 

 see that the young are fed 

 with vast numbers of such 

 insect foes. Even in winter 

 the eggs and pupae are con- 

 tinually eaten by birds. 



The enemies of the fruits of orchard trees are less 

 numerous than those of the leaves, but still their name is 

 legion. Scale insects, beetles, bugs, caterpillars, maggots, 

 midges, and other pests all attack one kind of fruit or 

 another, often destroying the bulk of the crop. The birds 

 that attack these enemies are nearly as numerous as those 

 that attack leaf -feeding insects, and the good they do is 

 incalculable. 



TENT-CATERPILLAR NEST AT- 

 TACKED BY BIRDS 



