106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



wood ; the wrens, mithatches, titmice and creepers eat the eggs 

 and young that live on and beneath the bark ; but the thrushes 

 subsist on those that destroy the vegetation on the surface of the 

 earth. They destroy nearly all kinds of grubs, caterpillars and 

 worms that live upon the green sward and cultivated soil, and 

 large quantities of crickets and grasshoppers before they have 

 become perfect insects. The grubs of locusts, of harvest-flies 

 and of beetles, which are turned up by the plough or the hoe, 

 and their pupae when emerging from the soil ; apple-worms 

 when they leave the fruit and crawl about in quest of new 

 shelter; and those subterranean caterpillars, or cut-^worms, that 

 come out of the earth to take their food ; all these, and many 

 others, are eagerly devoured by the robin and other thrushes. 

 The cut-worms emerge from the soil during the night to seek 

 for food, and the robin, which is one of the earliest birds to go 

 abroad in the morning, is very diligent at the dawn of day in 

 hunting for these vermin before they have gone back into their 

 retreat. The number of these destructive grubs is immense. 

 " Whole cornfields," says Dr. Harris, " are sometimes laid waste 

 by them. Cabbage-plants, till they are grown to a considerable 

 size, are very apt to be cut off and destroyed by them. Potato- 

 vines, beans, beets, and various other culinary plants, suffer in 

 the same way." The services of the robins, in destroying these 

 alone, would more than pay for all the fruit they devour. 

 Indeed, during the breeding season, a robin is seldom seen with- 

 out one of these caterpillars, or some similar grub, in his mouth, 

 which he designs for his young ; and as the robin often raises 

 three broods of young during the season, his species must 

 destroy more of this class of noxious iu sects than almost all 

 other birds together. In my own gardening experiences, I have 

 had my full share of cut-worms, and I have always noticed, as 

 many gentlemen present undoubtedly have, the robin, brown 

 thrush and cat-bird busy early in the morning, almost before 

 other birds are out of their feather-beds, figuratively speaking, 

 catching these vermin and eating them, or carrying them for 

 food to their young. 



Let us see what scientific men have observed concerning the 

 food of the robin. At a meeting of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History, a communication was read from Professor 

 Treadwell, of Cambridge, giving a detailed account of the feed- 



