22 Wyoming Bxperiment Station. 



leisurely from tree to tree, in a ceaseless tide of migration, 

 gleaning as they go ; the hardier males, in full song and plum- 

 age, lead the way for the weal^er females and yearlings. With 

 tireless industry do the warblers befriend the human race; 

 their unconscious zeal plays due part in the nice adjustment 

 of nature's forces, helping to bring about the balance of vege- 

 table and insect life without which agriculture would be in 

 vain. They visit the orchard when the apple and pear, the 

 peach, plum and cherry are in bloom, seeming to revel care- 

 lessly amid the sweet-scented and delicately-tinted blossoms, 

 but never faltering in their good work. They peer into the 

 crevices of the bafk, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the very 

 heart of the buds, to detect, drag forth, and destroy those tiny 

 creatures, singly insignificant, collectively a scourge, which 

 prey upon the hopes of the fruit-grower, and which, if undis- 

 turbed, would bring his care to naught. Some warblers flit 

 incessantly in the terminal foliage of the tallest trees, others 

 hug closely to the scored trunks and gnarled boughs of the 

 forest kings, some peep from the thicket, coppice, the impene- 

 trable mantle of shrubbery that decks tiny water-courses, play- 

 ing at hide-and-seek with all comers ; others humbler still, de- 

 scend to the ground, where they glide with pretty mincing 

 steps and affected turning of the head this way and that, their 

 delicate flesh-tinted feet just stirring the layer of withered 

 -leaves with which a past season carpeted the ground. We may 

 seek warblers everywhere in the seasons ; we shall find them a 

 continued surprise ; all mood and circumstance is theirs.' 



"Much could be written concerning the food-habits of the 

 various members of the group of Thrushes, Mocking-birds and 

 Wrens. Three of the species at least are known to be more 

 or less destructive to fruits, viz. : Catbird, Brown Thrasher 

 and Mocking-bird. Still, if we take into account what these 

 birds eat during the entire time spent within the state, the bal- 

 ance sheet stands on favor of the birds as insect destroyers. 

 The wrens are pre-eminently insect destroyers, and the others 

 are not much behind them in this respect. 



