SECRETARY'S REPORT. 109 



He thought that every admirer of trees may derive from these 

 facts a lesson, showing the immense power of birds to destroy 

 the insects by which our trees, especially our apple, elms and 

 lindens, are every few years stripped of their foliage, and often 

 many of them killed. " The food of the robin," he says, " while 

 with us, consists principally of • worms, various insects, their 

 larvae and eggs, and a few cherries. Of worms and cherries 

 they can procure but few, and those during but a short period, 

 and they arc obliged, therefore, to subsist principally upon the 

 great destroyers of leaves — canker-worms, and some other kinds 

 of caterpillars and bugs. If each robin, old and young, requires 

 for its support an amount of these equal to the weight consumed 

 by this bird, it is easy to see what a prodigious havoc a few 

 hundred of these must make upon the insects of an orchard or 

 nursery. Is it not, then, to our advantage," he asks, " to pur- 

 chase the service of the robins at the price of a few cherries or 

 berries ? Most certainly ; and a Worcester County horticul- 

 turist says he is willing to give the robins a bushel of cherries 

 apiece for the good they do, should they requii^e so many." 



Wilson Flagg, an acute and careful observer of the habits of 

 our birds, gives some of his experiences of the robin as follows. 

 He says : " Before I had investigated the habits of this bird, 

 with particular reference to the service he renders to agriculture, 

 I supposed he was only of secondary importance, compared ^\ath 

 the blackbird and others that possess the faculty of discovering 

 and seizing the grubs that lie concealed beneath the surface of 

 the ground. Though the robin does not possess this faculty, he 

 is pre-eminently serviceable in other ways ; and the more I have 

 studied his habits the more I am convinced of his usefulness. 

 Indeed, I am now fully pursuaded that he is valuable beyond 

 all other species of birds, and that his services are absolutely 

 indispensable to the farmers of New England. Some persons 

 believe that the robin is exclusively a frugivorous bird, and that 

 for fruit he will reject all other food that is within his reach. 

 Others believe that his diet consists about equally of fruits and 

 angle worms, but that he is not a general consumer of insects. 

 The truth is, the robin is almost exclusively insectivorous, and 

 uses fruit as we do, only as a dessert, and not for his subsistence, 

 except in the winter, when his insect food cannot be obtained. 

 He is not omnivorous, like the crow, the jay, and the blackbird. 



