1 34 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



claimed. Shrews and moles get numerous ants, wireworms, cutworms and 

 white grubs, and doubtless do more good than harm. The short-tailed shrew 

 has proved to be one of the principal enemies of the larch sawfly and in New- 

 Brunswick it has been ascertained that 40 per cent of the cocoons are destroyed 

 by this shrew. Arboreal squirrels sometimes feed freely on scale insects and 

 other tree pests; the western ground squirrels eat quantities of injurious in- 

 sects, such as cutworms, wireworms and grasshoppers ; and the so-called grass- 

 hopper mice perhaps deserve their name, and undoubtedly are more highly in- 

 sectivorous than the majority of their tribe. The armadillo, which occurs in 

 the United States only in Texas, is a voracious consumer of insects, especially 

 white grubs and their adults, caterpillars and ants, and the badger occasionally 

 makes a hearty meal of grasshoppers, immature cicadas, or beetles. Of our 

 larger mammals, skunks certainly are the greatest enemies of insects. Army 

 worms, tobacco worms and white grubs are favorite prey of these animals. In 

 Manitoba, Mr. Norman Criddle, field officer, Canadian Entomological Service, 

 estimated that on one 8-acre tract skunks destroyed 14,520 white grubs to the 

 acre. Cutworms, the potato beetle and grasshoppers are other insect pests eaten 

 by skunks, and the common eastern skunk once proved so efficient an enemy of 

 the hop grub in New York, that the first legislation protecting the animal in 

 that state was passed at the demand of the hop growers. Investigations in New 

 Mexico by the Biological Survey showed skunks also to be most important 

 natural enemies of the range caterpillar." 



Not only are many mammals enemies of insects, but some insects are 

 annoying, injurious, and in some cases very destructive to mammals, 

 a subject discussed in Chapter xn, on Diseases and Parasites of Mam- 

 mals. 



