1861. 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMER. 



329 



about twenty-five pennywciglitjS less than half 

 the weigat of the full grown bird ; both were 

 plump (wi vigorous, and had evidently been 

 very recently turned out of the nest. He began 

 feeding them with earth worn)?, giving three to 

 each bird that night; the second day he gave 

 them Ten worms each, which they ate ravenous- 

 ly ; thinking this beyond what (heir parents 

 would naturally supply them with, be limited 

 them to this allowance. On the third day, h« 

 gave ihem eight worms each, in the forenoon ; 

 but in the afternoon he found one becoming fee- 

 ble, and it soon lost its strength, refused food, 

 and died On opening it he found the crop, 

 gizzird and intestines entirely empty, and con- 

 cluded, therefore, that, it had died from want of 

 B "fficie! t food, the effect of hunger being per- 

 haps increased by cold, as the thermometer wa-- 

 about 60 deg. The other bird, sliH vigorou", he 

 put in a warmer place, and increased iis food, 

 giving it tie third day fifteen worms; on the 

 fourth, twenty-four; on the fifth, twenty-five; 

 on tht! sixth, thirty ; on the seventh, thirty-one 

 worms. They seemed insufficient, and th'' bird 

 appe\red to be losing plumpness and weight. 

 He began, then, to weigh both the bird and i's 

 food, and the results were given in a tabular 

 form. 



On the fifteenth day he tried a small quantity 

 of raw meat, and, finding it readily eaten, in- 

 creased it gradually, to the exc'usion of worms ; 

 with it the bird ate a larger quantity of earth 

 and gravel, and drank freely after eating. By 

 experiment, it appears that thr>ugh the food was 

 increased to forty worms, weighing twenty dwt., 

 on the eleventh day the weight rather fell off, 

 and it was not until the fourteenth day, when he 

 ate sixty eight worms, or thirty four dwt, that 

 he began to increase. On this day the weight of 

 the bird was iwenty-four dwt., he therefore ate 

 forty-one per cent, more than his own weight in 

 twelve hours, we ghing after it twenly-ninedwt , 

 or fifteen per cmt. less than the food he had 

 eaten at t'lat time; the lengih of these worms, 

 if laid fnd to end, would be about fourteen feet, 

 or ten times the length of the intestines. To 

 meet the objection that the earth worm contains 

 but a small amount, of solid, nutritious matter, 

 on the twenty-seventh day he was fe<^ exclusive- 

 ly on clear beef, in quantity twenty -three dwt.; 

 8t night the bird weighed forty-two dwt , but 

 little more than twice the amount of flesh con- 

 sumed during the day, not taking into account 

 the water and earth swallowed. 



This presents a wonderful contrflst with the 

 amount of food required by cold blooded verte- 

 brates, fishes and reptiles, m^ny of which can 

 live for months withoet food ; and also with that 

 required by mammalia : a man, at this rate, 

 should eat about seventy pounds of flesh a day, 

 and drink five or six gallons of water. The 

 presents itself, how can this immense amount of 

 food required ty the young bird be supplied by 

 the parents ? Suppose a pair of robins, wi'h 

 the usual number of young ones — they would 

 require, according to the consumption of this 

 bird, two hundred and f:fty, or their equivalent 

 in insects or other food, daily ; suppose the pa« 



rents to work ten houls, or six hundred minutes, 

 to procure this supply, this would be a worm in 

 every tvto Rnd four-tenths minutes or each p*-- 

 rent must procure a worm or its equivalent in 

 less than five minutes during ten hours, in addi- 

 tion to the food required for its own support. 



He was unal)le to reconcile this ctlculation 

 with actual observation of robins, which he had 

 never seen return to their nests ottener than 

 once in ten minutes. After the thirty-sec nd 

 day, the bird had attained its full size, and was 

 intrusted to the care of another person during 

 his own absence of eighteen days ; at the the end 

 of that period the bird was strong and healthy, 

 w.th no increase of weight, though its feathers 

 had grown longer and smoother. Its fond had 

 been weighed daily and averaged fifteen dwt. of 

 meat, two or tree earth worms, and a s nail quan- 

 tity of bread each day, the whole being equal to 

 eighteen dwt. of beef, or thirty -six dwt. of tarth 

 wo .ms, and it has continued to eat this amount 

 until the present time. The bird havine contin- 

 ued, in its confinement, with certainly much less 

 exercise than in the wild state, to eat one-third 

 of its weight of clean flesh daily, be concludes 

 that the food it consumed when young was not 

 much more than must always be provided by the 

 parents of wild birds. The food was never passed 

 undigested; the excretions were made up of 

 gravel and dirt, and a small quantity of white 

 semi-so'.id urine. 



He thought every admirer of trees might dj- 

 rivefrom the f cts a lesson, showing the immense 

 power of birds to destrey the insects by wh ch 

 our trees, especially our apples, elms and lindens 

 are every few years stripped of their foliage, and 

 often many of them killed. The food of the 

 robin while with us consists principal'y of earth 

 worms, various insects, their larvae and eggs, 

 and a few cherries ; of worms and cherri s they 

 can obtain but few, and these during a short pe- 

 riod, and they a e obliged to subsi.-t principal'y 

 on the great destroyers of leaves, canker-worms 

 and some other kinds of catapillars and bugs. 

 If each robin, old and young, requites for its 

 support an amount of these equal to the weight 

 consumed by this bird, it is easy to see what a 

 prodigious havoc a few hundreds of them must 

 make upon the insects of an orchard or park. 



Is it not, then, to our advantage, he asks, to 

 purchase the service of these robins at the price 

 of a few cherries? There has lately been some 

 improvemant in preserving our birds, and with a 

 little more protection, he thinks such an increase 

 of them might be obtained as would save us from 

 all the labor required for the appliances of tar, 

 oil, zinc plites, and all other methods by which 

 we seek, with very imperfect success, to destroy 

 our mischievous insects. 



Patent Magnetic Hammeb — The latest Yan- 

 kee patent is called the mag tetic Hui'ftr, a 

 dynamic instrument, which is niagu tJz o in 

 order to pick up small nails and tacks, and saye 

 the fingers of the person using it. 



