166 



but corn, of which, it has been -well ascertained, he M'ill cat- 

 but a very small quantity, though it were placed constantly be- 

 fore him. The same results might be obtained, however, by 

 encouraging other birds that seek this grub as their favorite 

 food. Such are the common Crow Black-bird or Purple 

 Grackle, one of the most useful of the farmer's friends, the 

 Red-winged Blackbii'd and the Meadow Lark. The Eobin 

 takes vast quantities of cut-worms that do not lie so deep in 

 the soil, but he does not dig into the earth like the birds just 

 named. The most useful birds are those which are likewise 

 the most mischievous on certain occasions, tlie Blackbirds by 

 stealing com and the Robiu by stealing cherries. One of our 

 most useful birds, among the smaller species, is the "Wax-wing, 

 which, on account of his ceaseless depredations in the Cherry 

 trees, is known by the familiar name of the Cherry Bird. 

 Prof. W. D. Peck, in his "Prize Essay on the Natural History 

 of the Canker Worm," remarks : " The priucipal check pro- 

 vided by nature upon the too great increase of this insect, is- 

 the Amiielis Garrulus of Linnaeus, called by Mr. Catesby, the 

 Chatterer of Carolina, and in Rev. Dr. Belknap's History of 

 New Hampshii-e, the Cherry Bird. This bird destroys great 

 numbers of them, while in the larva state." 



Bii'ds that eat fruit are observed to prefer insects, and to re- 

 sort to fruit only when insects are scarce or placed beyond their 

 reach. The author of " The Journal of a Naturalist " says of 

 the Fieldfare, a bird resembling the American Robin: " In this 

 county (Gloucestershire) the extensive low lands of the river 

 Severn, in open weather, are visited by prodigious flocks of 

 these bu'ds ; but as soon as snow falls, or bad weather comes 

 on, they leave these marshy lands, because their insect food is 

 covered or become scarce, visit the uplands to feed on the pro- 

 duce of the hedges ; and we see them all day long passing over 

 our heads, in large flights, on some distant progress, in the 

 same manner as our Larks, at the commencement of the snowy 

 season, repair to the turnip-fields of Somerset and Wiltshu-e. 

 They remain about during the continuance of these causes 



