THE OOLOGIST 



179 



northern states suffered a complete 

 loss of their grass and grain crops. 

 The colonists were obliged to import 

 hay from England to feed their cattle. 

 In the year of 1900 I experienced a 

 plague of grasshoppers and they des- 

 troyed much of my hay crop and I 

 only saved corn and grain by placing 

 pens of chickens (of which I had a 

 number at that time) several rods 

 apart along the sides of the cultivated 

 fields. These chickens ate immense 

 amounts of the grasshoppers and re- 

 quired very little other food and thus 

 protected the crop from destruction. 



Similar the Mormons of Utah when 

 that state was first settled, had their 

 crops almost utterly destroyed by 

 myriads of crickets which came down 

 from the mountains. The first year's 

 crops having been destroyed, the Mor- 

 mons sowed seed the second year, 

 again the crickets appeared and were 

 destroying the wheat. At this juncture 

 hundreds of thousands of Frankling 

 Gulls came and ate the crickets and 

 thus saved the fields of grain. 



We have here a traveler from the 

 West, one who has never been a wel- 

 come guest. I speak of the Colorado 

 Potato Beetle. It is very destructive 

 to the potato plant and appears to 

 have few foes to destroy it. Bob-white 

 and the Rose-breasted Grossbeak are 

 the only birds which I can remember 

 as reported as eating the potato bug 

 and neither are pitiful enough in this 

 state to have any appreciable affect 

 on the beetle, and we must needs re- 

 sort to poison to save our crop. Hence 

 it is with pleasure that I am able to 

 add a new bird to the list of those who 

 eat the potato bug. Last summer in 

 passing through a swale or wet place 

 on my farm I came upon a roosting 

 platform of the American Bittern. 

 This platform is made by the birds 

 bending down from all sides the swale 

 grass thus forming a raised and dry 



perch where they spend the night. 

 This roosting place which I found ap- 

 peared to have been used the night 

 before and thereupon it were some of 

 the droppings of the birds. This con- 

 sisted in part of the hard indigestible 

 parts of bugs, grasshoppers, legs, 

 beetles and also the outer shell or 

 back of a Colorado Beetle. The Amer- 

 ican Bittern has long been the tempt- 

 ing mark for the man with the gun. 

 Its slow even flight has made it an 

 easy shot, hence many have fallen 

 victims to the would be wing shot. It 

 arrives here about the first of May and 

 seldom one sees more than one at a 

 time except in the breeding season, 

 when a pair are sometimes flushed 

 near together. 



It is fairly common on the marsh in 

 September. One should look for it 

 along the shores of the slough or 

 marsh and not along the banks of the 

 flowing river. The note of the Bittern 

 once heard will always be remembered. 

 It has been likened to the (chunk) of 

 an old fashioned pump or the driving 

 of a wooden post or stake and indeed 

 has some of the resemblance of both 

 according to the distance the auditor 

 is away from the bird. When run up- 

 on and flushed it often rises with a 

 loud squawk. The Bittern nests here 

 the last of May or the first of June, 

 among the reeds and low bushes of 

 some slough. The nest is made of 

 grass and rushes. It is flat and built 

 upon the ground, in fact a mere plat- 

 form some 3 to 4 inches deep, 8 inches 

 long, by 6 inches wide. A nest found 

 May 28th, 1893, situated some 200 

 yards from a house and 100 yards from 

 the river contained four fresh e^-gs of 

 a pale olive-drab and average about 

 1.84 x 1.44, in form oval. The./ are 

 close sitters, trusting to their indis- 

 tinguishable coloration, which blends 

 so nicely with the surrounding rushes. 

 When on the nest you will find them 



