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AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST. 107 
ages of the insignificent wheat midge, (Diplosis tritici) two years 
later, in one county of the same state, two thousand acres that 
would have yeilded 60,000 bushels of wheat were destroyed by the 
same insect. 
The Hessian Fly (Cecidomyia destructor) has also caused great 
devastation in the wheat belt. On the valuation of the crop of 
1904, according to statistics furnished by Dr. Marlott, the loss 
occasioned by this fly alone amounted to almost fifty million dollars 
while four years previous to that date, the loss in the wheat grow- 
ing states from this tiny midge approached one hundred million 
dollars. 
Another pest which destroys many of the staple crops in the 
Mississippi valley is the cinch bug (Blissus leucopterus.) The last re- 
port of Z. T. Sweeney, commissioner of Fisheries and Game in 
Indiana, contains statistics of this insect compiled by Drs. Schim- 
mer and Riley. According to this report, the loss caused by the 
cinch bug in one year, 1864, in the Mississippi valley was one hun- 
' dred million dollars, while the loss in Illinois for that year reached 
seventy-five millions. 
The cotton industry has a powerful enemy in the ordinary 
cotton worm (Alabama argillacea) which has been known and fear- 
ed for more than a century. The report of the Massachusetts 
Board of Agriculture for 1906 says in regard to this pest; “The 
average loss in the cotton states from this caterpillar for fourteen 
years following the Civil War was estimated at fifteen million 
dollars per year. 
These are but a few of the striking examples of destruction oc- 
casioned by ordinary pests which our birds are destroying. The 
reports of our boards of agriculture contain numerous cases of in- 
Sect ravages, not as great as these, perhaps, but still alarmingly 
large and calculated to make men consider the question of preserv- 
ing the birds. i 
When these startling losses are considered it is readily seen 
how birds operate to prevent injury to our crops. Of course to ac- 
complish this it is necessary that birds be present in sufficient num- 
bers; and yet these numbers need not be very large in proportion 
to the insects for each bird devours an incredible number of insects. 
Chester A. Reed says, ‘‘It has been found by observation and dis- 
section that a cuckoo consumes daily from fifty to four hundred 
caterpillars while a chickadee will eat fron two hundred to five hun- 
