Proceedings of the Farmers^ Club. 539 



caught in the act, and there is probably nothing more wonderful in 

 nature than the ingenuity of many birds in finding their insect prey. 

 This one finds this concealed caterpillar not by seeing it, that is 

 impossible; not by smell nor by motion, it is as quiet as a mummy ; 

 neither by instinct; the bird is American, the insect a foreign impor- 

 tation ; no, he finds it by sounding ; he taps all scales alike, but stops 

 to make a hole through the one under which the worm lies. Could 

 we have this bird in abundance, we should have more and better 

 apples and pears, but, like all the other woodpeckers, it is diminishing 

 in numbers, in proportion as the woods of the country are cut away. 

 And, sad to tell, the few that are left of this most valuable of all our 

 small birds, are sold in the markets of this city, ready picked, for 

 four cents a piece. Here are the heads of five cedar birds, sometimes 

 called cherry birds, in consequence of the bad name this bird has 

 from the circumstance that it will sometimes take chernes. I have 

 given it a thorough investigation. I have killed many ; more than I 

 ever will again. In the stomach of one I found several canker- 

 worms, so perfect as to be readily identified, and the heads of enough 

 more to make thirty-six in all. Think of that! One cedar bird 

 taking at a single meal thirty-six canker-worms. This insect has for 

 half a century been a perfect scourge of the apple orchards of a 

 great part of New England, and has at times seriously threatened 

 other sections of the country. This little bird is a gross feeder, and 

 continues in flocks till near midsummer. Where insects appear in 

 great numbers, as the canker, and other span-worms sometimes do, 

 it will come suddenly in large flocks, and feed there day after day till 

 the pest is subdued. And this beautiful little friend of ours, the 

 second best of all the birds, is sold by bushels in this market both 

 fall and spring, and no one, not even Bergh, to cry shame. In the 

 stomachs of these cedar birds I found nothing but cedar and juniper 

 berries, the peculiar smell of the latter was very perceptible in the 

 stomachs of two. The lovers of gin will probably be the enemies of 

 this bird in future, but, when it is known that all the juniper berries 

 used in this country come from Europe, it may modify the wrath of 

 the gin drinkers. Here is the head of the American shrike, or but- 

 cher bird. Its stomach was filled to repletion with a mass of insects. 

 but so comminuted as to be undistinguishable except by a micro- 

 scope. This bird, it is said, will transfix insects on thorns or briars, 

 after satisfying his present wants, so as to keep them till hungry, 

 Here is a meadow lark. You will observe how long and strong the 



