64 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



granivoroiis birds, though they feed exclusively upon an 

 animal diet. 



I have said nothing of the foraging habits of the swallow 

 tribe, for these are very well known and understood. The 

 swallows are the guardians of the atmosphere, which would 

 otherwise swarm with fatal quantities of minute insects; the 

 woodpeckers are the guardians of the timber of the forest, 

 and the Sylvians and Fly-catchers of the foliage. Blackbirds, 

 plovers, larks and thrushes are the natural guardians of the 

 soil and of the creeping herbage. Each tribe has its respective 

 duty to perform in the economy of nature ; and man must 

 beware how he disturbs her equilibrium, by reducing the 

 numbers of any species below the amount of supplies which the 

 insect world affords them. 



It is curious to notice the assiduity with which insects are 

 hunted in all the various stages of their existence. In their 

 larva state, those that lurk under the soil are hunted by black- 

 birds, by thrushes and by the common robins, who easily 

 detect their hiding places by the appearance of vegetation. 

 Those infesting the wood and bark of trees are hunted by wood- 

 peckers who are no less sagacious in discovering the retreat of 

 their prey and dislodging it. Wlien the larva has assumed the 

 form of moths, beetles and other perfect insects, these are 

 attacked by bluebirds, wrens. Fly-catchers and hosts of other 

 birds, who watch for them in all situations, in the daytime : and 

 in the night by whippoorwills, nighthawks and the little owls. 

 It matters not in what stage of its existence the insect is destroy- 

 ed ; but it is demonstrable that the insect tribes cannot be kept 

 in check, unless they are attacked in all the stages of their 

 being ; and birds are their only effectual destroyers. Man 

 cannot by direct means cause their destruction, except in par- 

 ticular locations. He cannot be a general destroyer ; and their 

 general over multiplication can be checked only by nature's 

 own agents which she has appointed for tliis end. 



Before I conclude this branch of my subject, I wisli to say a 

 word in behalf of one of our most useful birds. I allude to the 

 little spotted tattler or peetweet, a species of plover that 

 breeds annually in our fields, and would multiply and become 

 very numerous if the species were protected. Tliese little birds 

 are so mercilessly hunted by gunners of all ages, that they have 



