SONG BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 175 



Professor King in Wisconsin found beetles, including 

 snap beetles and boring beetles, in the stomachs of fourteen 

 birds of the species. In Massachusetts it feeds largely on 

 beetles, taking many that bore in the bark or wood. It also 

 feeds on the eggs of insects, and on hibernating larvse and 

 ants . Scale insects are taken 

 in winter. The oyster-shell 

 bark scale louse (Lepidosa- 

 phes ulmi), injurious to the 

 apple, pear, currant, and 

 other useful plants and trees, 

 is eaten greedily. The pro- 

 portion of insect food in- 

 creases as spring advances, 

 and the young are fed largely 

 if not entirely on insects. 

 On Nov. 26, 1897, Mr. Kirk- 

 land examined the stomach 

 of one of these birds, which contained one thousand, six 

 hundred and twenty -nine eggs of the fall cankerworm moth. 

 As there were no moth remains, it was evident that the bird 

 had gathered these eggs from the bark. 



One day Mr. Bailey watched a pair of these Nuthatches 

 in Brookline. The birds went regularly from tree to tree, 

 searching beneath the burlap bands for gipsy caterpillars, 

 which for several hours they carried continually and fed to 

 their full-fledged young. The young birds also found and 

 killed a few. The preference shown by these particular birds 

 for the hairy gipsy caterpillars at this place seems remark- 

 able, as there were comparatively few of these larvse to be 

 found there at the time. 



This Nuthatch has been seen to eat cankerworms, forest 

 caterpillars, and plant lice, and there is no doubt that ordi- 

 narily it is a valuable species while here. 



Fig. 56. Wood-boring beetle, much en- 

 larged. Nuthatches eat such beetles. 



