170 



to these crops. The other Thrushes are too shy to frequent 

 our gardens, and Blackbirds and Plovers cannot be sufficiently 

 domesticated. 



It is not probable that we could raise more than half the 

 usual produce of our fields and gardens, if the Eobin were ex- 

 terminated. He destroys nearly all kinds of worms, grubs 

 and caterpillars that live upon the green-sward and cultivated 

 land, and large quantities of crickets and grasshoppers, before 

 they are fully grown. The grubs of locusts, of harvest-flies 

 and of beetles, and the pupae of the same, when turned up by 

 the plough ; apple worms when they leave the fruit and crawl 

 about in quest of a new shelter ; those subterranean cater- 

 pillars, or cut-worms, that come out of the earth to seek their 

 food ; all these and many others are eagerly devoured by the 

 Eobin. Cut-worms emerge from the soil during twilight to 

 seek their food ; and the Robin, one of the earliest foragers in 

 the morning, and one of the latest in the evening, takes great 

 quantities of cut-worms at such hours. 



The number of this race of caterpillars is so great that 

 "whole cornfields," according to Dr. Harris, ''are sometimes 

 laid waste by them. Cabbage plants, till they are grown to a 

 considerable size, are very apt to be cut ofi" and destroyed by 

 them. Potato vines, beans, beets, and various other culinary 

 plants, suffer in the same way. The products of our flower- 

 gardens are not spared; asters, balsams, pinks, and many other 

 kinds of flowers, are often shorn of their leaves and central 

 buds, by these concealed vermin." 



The Robin is an indefatigable destroyer of these caterpillars, 

 feeding his young with them almost incessantly. And when 

 we consider that this bird always raises two broods, and often 

 three broods, of young in a season, we may judge that his de- 

 mands for insect food, especially in its larva state, must exceed 

 that of any other species. Last summer, (1861,) having been 

 confined nearly all the season to the house by illness, I had 

 ample opportunity to watch the habits of the few birds that 

 could be seen from my windows. These were chiefly Robins, 



