224 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



The grosbeak was the pioneer, but as the years have gone by 

 other eastern birds have conquered their distrust of the nev 

 food and relished it." In Farmers' Bulletin No. 54, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, Professor F. E. L. Beal tells of 

 one potato field that was badly infested by these destructive 

 insects. "The grosbeaks," he says, "visited the field every day 

 and finally brought their fledged young. The young birds 

 stood in a row on the topmost rail of the fence, and were fed 

 with the beetles which their parents gathered. When a care- 

 ful inspection was made a few days after, not a beetle, old or 

 young, could be found ; the birds had swept them from the 

 field and saved the potatoes." In his report to the Michigan 

 Horticultural Society in 1881, Professor Forbes says they eat 

 canker worms, which, in some he examined, formed sixty-six 

 per cent, of their food ; also army worms and other caterpillars, 

 wood-boring, leaf chafing and snout beetles and hymenoptera. 

 They are accused of destroying the opening buds upon our 

 trees when they first come to us, but if this be true, the good 

 record they make throughout the summer in destroying injuri- 

 ous pests greatly exceeds the damage they do, and we do 

 well if we protect them. 



