30 



the ground sparrows gleaning among the leaves and undergrowth 

 for ground beetles ; the woodpecker drilling into the trees for borers ; 

 the creepers, nut-hatches and titmice searching exevj crevice and 

 cranny in the bark of the trees, extracting the hidden grubs, eggs 

 and caterpillars ; the warblers, vireos and wrens searching the twigs 

 and foliage of plants and trees for the wary insects hidden there ; 

 fly catchers, bluebirds, swallows, warblers and swifts cleaving the 

 air in all directions and snapping up their flying or perching prey ; 

 the hawks and bitterns destroying grasshoppers ; the owls, night 

 hawks and whippoorwills noiselessly flitting about pursuing the 

 large night-flying moths and beetles, — all give evidence of perfect 

 adaptation to the pursuit and capture of the insects on which they 

 feed. 



Birds of many species follow locust invasions and gorge them- 

 selves to repletion. It is a well-known fact that birds assemble 

 wherever the larvse of moths appearing in great numbers strip the 

 foliage from the trees. Birds quickly discover such localities and 

 at once resort to them, seeking them as magazines of food supply 

 for their young. I have observed blackbirds flying half a mile 

 over the meadows to a spot where larvre were plentiful, returning 

 after each visit with caterpillars in their beaks to feed their young. 

 They seem to prefer to travel this distance to a point where food 

 is plenty and easily obtained rather than to search for it in the 

 immediate vicinity of their nests. An orchard infested by canker 

 worms is visited by birds from far and near, and the outbreak is 

 generall}' checked in one or two seasons if birds are sufficiently 

 plentiful in the neighborhood. The amount of insect food which 

 young birds will consume is not generally understood. Mr. E. W. 

 Wood of Newton, a well-known member of the State Board of 

 Agriculture, informs me that during one season, when the spring 

 canker worms {Anisopteryx vernata) became quite numerous in his 

 orchard, a pair of Baltimore orioles appeared and built a nest near 

 by. In the mean time they fed daily upon the canker worms. 

 This they continued to do so assiduously that by the time the young 

 were hatched the numbers of the worms were considerably reduced. 

 They then redoubled their diligence, sometimes carrying ten or 

 more worms to their nest at once. Soon the canker worms in that 

 orchard were a thing of the past. The foliage and fruitage were 

 saved for that and many succeeding yeai's. Audubon says a wood- 

 cock will eat its own weight of insects in a single night. Mr. E. A. 

 Samuels, quoting from the experiments of Professor Treadwell, 

 shows that it was found necessary to feed a young robin forty-one 

 per cent more than its own weight in worms in twelve hours to 

 insure its healthy growth and development. It was found that the 



