8 



with trees and bordered by farming lands, orchards and wooded 

 hills, should be an ideal place for birds. 



When migrating they appear to stop by preference where 

 there is an abundance of suitable food with which they may 

 replenish the waste of tissues worn by flight. At such times 

 birds that have found food attract by their calls others flying 

 by or overhead; these also are heard or seen by others still, 

 and so they come from far and near. To find a good place for 

 migrating warblers in fall and spring, look for plant lice on the 

 birches in some sheltered locality, — an old neglected pasture 

 overgrown by young birches is an excellent place. Where 

 these insects are numerous it is impossible to pass among the 

 trees without collecting numbers of the little green creatures 

 upon your clothing. Often I have found many migrating 

 warblers in such places, when elsewhere in the woods there 

 were very few to be seen. Sparrows, blackbirds, orioles and 

 other birds of the orchards, swamps and fields are attracted to 

 the woods by these plant lice. 



In early spring you may watch the birds when they are 

 feeding on the tiny young tent caterpillars or other leaf-eating 

 larvae. Both species of cuckoo, the vireos, orioles, chipping 

 sparrows, goldfinches, and several warblers come to the cater- 

 pillars' webs either to get food or to procure web to use in the 

 construction of their nests. In May and June an old neglected 

 orchard is a good hunting ground. The apple tree has count- 

 less insect enemies, and birds seek them in a neglected orchard 

 where the trees are neither scraped, pruned nor sprayed. To 

 see the birds that come to the orchard, one should find a few 

 trees attacked by cankerworms or other inchworms, then sit 

 down quietly, and watch the birds that come to feed on them. 

 In this way one may see, in an hour or two, nearly all the 

 birds of a locality, for most birds feed on these insects and 

 carry them to their young. In July and August birds may be 

 found in swamps where berries grow. They fly to the wild 

 cherry trees in August and September. Wherever we go we 

 shall find some birds, but if one is in search of a particular 

 species, he may not find it unless he knows where to look. 



The common birds that nest here in summer are much in- 

 fluenced by the character of their food in choosing their nesting 



