504 THE GOOD OFFICES IT RENDERS 



Both are among the most persistent of our musicians ; in the 

 Middle States, for example, their notes are heard from the latter 

 part of April until far into September, and at all hours of the 

 day. But much as we may admire Gilvus in the agreeable sen- 

 timent which his ong inspires, we owe him a higher and more 

 respectful consideration for the good services he renders us in 

 a very practical way. Inhabiting by choice our parks, lawns, 

 and orchards, and even the shade-trees of our busiest streets, 

 rather than the untried depths of the forest, these birds collec- 

 tively render efficient service by ridding us of unnumbered 

 insects, whose presence is a pest, as well as a continual annoy- 

 ance to sensitive persons. They take a foremost place among 

 the useful birds for whose good services in this regard we have 

 reason to be grateful, being much more beneficial than the 

 European Sparrows, which we have imported for the same pur- 

 pose, and against whose insolent aggressions these tender birds 

 should be protected. The comparative abundance of these two 

 species being duly considered, there can be but one opinion in 

 the matter of their respective efficiency in destroying noxious 

 insects; for the Vireos are particularly insectivorous birds, 

 while Sparrows eat insects only at certain seasons, and then 

 only through caprice ; their natural food is seeds, and at pres- 

 ent, in this country, they feed for the most part on street- 

 garbage.* 



There is nothing to distinguish the Eastern and Western 

 Warbling Vireos, so far as their habits and manners are con- 

 cerned. It is true that the former is more civilized just now ; 

 but this is a transitory circumstance, which will doubtless 

 yield to the settlement of the West, when we may expect 

 to find the Warbling Yireos of that portion of our country in- 



* According to Mr. Gentry, who lias paid such particular attention to the 

 food of our birds, this Vireo feeds chiefly upon dipterous and lepidop'erous 

 insects, the larvae of many of which, as is well known, are among the most 

 injurious. This gentleman has found in their stomachs remains of Mwca 

 domestica, Tabanus lineola, T. tinctus, Tipula ferruginea, Culex tceniorhynchus, 

 and other Diptera; the lepidopterous Anisonyx vernata, A. pometaria, Zerene 

 catenaria, Ennomos subsignaria, Eufitchia ribearia Angcronia crocataria, and 

 Limacodes scopha ; with Apis mellifica, Selandria rosce, and MegacMle centun- 

 cularis among Hymenoptera ; together with various Aphides, or plant-lice. 



Prof. Samuel Aughey gives the Warbling Vireo among the birds of Ne- 

 braska which destroy the scourge of that country the grasshopper. " I 

 frequently saw it light down within a rod of me where locusts abounded 

 and feed on them. This species seemed to eat them in all stages of their 

 growth, and brought them constantly to their nests for their young. " (First 

 Ann. Rep. U. S. Entom. Comm. for 1877. 1878, App. p. [27].) 



