UTILITY OF BIRDS IN WOODI.ANDS. 103 



ever hunting, hunting, hunting, to find the wherewithal to 

 stop those insistent, hungry cries ; for hunger is not good 

 for young birds, and their cries may betray them to their 

 enemies. This continual search for food for the callow 

 young goes far towards checking the uprising host of in- 

 sects in June and July, and preventing the absolute destruc- 

 tion of the trees. 



When the young birds are out of the nest, their parents 

 lead them to some spot where insects are most plentiful, and 

 there continue to feed them for a time. When the fledge- 

 lings are strong and well able to fly about and find their own 

 sustenance, the old birds usually drive them away from the 

 vicinity of the home, and they scatter in search of food, 

 drifting here and there, wherever food is most plentiful, 

 until they find themselves moving southward, with the 

 receding tide of bird life, toward that land where frost 

 and snow are never known. 



Some of the Warblers are ready to leave for the south by 

 midsummer. Such of the summer residents as still remain 

 wander through the woods in late summer and early fall, in 

 search of insect outbreaks, wild fruit, and seeds, feeding as 

 they move along. They are now slowly migrating. The 

 chill of autumn evenings accelerates their southward move- 

 ment, and on clear, still nights their call notes and even 

 their beating wings may be heard as they fly southward. 



The birds are now without home attachments, and gather 

 wherever food is most plentiful. Those that have found 

 insects in plenty call to others that are fly ing by or overhead, 

 bidding them also to the feast. So the tide of bird life 

 sweeps back through the woods of the temperate zone toward 

 the equator. In late October bird songs are heard no more. 

 A few Thrushes, Woodpeckers, Chickadees, Kinglets, Creep- 

 ers, and Nuthatches flit here and there ; Blue Jays mourn- 

 fully call ; a Crow caws now and then ; but otherwise the 

 woods seem deserted. Still, at this season of the year and 

 all through the winter and early spring months the few birds 

 that remain are accomplishing the greatest good for the 

 forest ; for now the development and increase of all insects 

 are arrested, while their destruction by birds goes on. In 



