ENTOMOLOGICAL CABINET. 



dants of the first year, would destroy as many as 

 eighty thousand grubs. Now, supposing that forty 

 thousand of these may be females, and that each fe- 

 male lays, as is the case, about two hundred eggs, it 

 will appear that no less than eight millions of grubs 

 have been destroyed, or at least prevented from 

 being hatched, by this single family of jays. 



It is true that in these labours of the rooks, jays, 

 and some other birds, they sometimes do mischief to 

 man ; yet there can be little doubt that the damage 

 they thus commit is amply repaid by the benefit that 

 results from these their unceasing exertions. 



Some farmers plough the ground in order to ex- 

 pose the grubs to the birds ; and others take the pains 

 to dig deeper wherever the rooks point them out 

 by their attempts to reach them. — When the insects 

 are in their winged state, to shake the trees at noon, 

 when they are all either asleep or in a state of in- 

 active stupor, and gather or sweep them up from the 

 ground, seems the most eligible method. One per- 

 son has been known to kill in a day, by this method, 

 above a thousand ; by which, though in so short a 

 space of time, at a fair calculation, he prevented no 

 fewer than a hundred thousand eggs from being laid. 



The dead bodies of these insects afford a very ac- 

 ceptable food to ducks, turkies, and other poultry. 

 Swine, as I have before observed, will likewise gree- 

 dily devour them, particularly when bruised and 

 mixed with their other food ; and cats catch and 

 eat them with great avidity. 



A person near Blois, in France, employed in the 

 year 1785 a number of children and poor persons to 

 5-2 



