Photo by Mrs. F. W. Roe 



BLUE JAYS (see page ^187) 



The blue jay, I fear, is a reproljate ; but, notwithstanding" his fondness for eggs and 

 nestlings, and his evident jr.y in worrying other birds, there is a dashing, reckless air about 

 him which makes us pardon his faults and like him in spite of ourselves. Like many men, 

 he needs the inspiration of congenial company to bring out the social side of his disposition. 

 When at home he is very different from the noisy fellow who, with equally noisy comrades, 

 roams the woods in the fall. 



coursing rapidl}' U> and fro, ever in pur- 

 suit of the nisects, ^vllicl^ constitute their 

 .sole food. When they retire, tlie niglit- 

 hawks and whippoorwills will take up 

 the chase, catching nidths and other noc- 

 turnal insects which would escape dav- 

 flying birds. The flycatchers lie in wait, 

 darting from ambush at passing prev, 

 and with a suggestive click of the bill 

 returning to their post. 



The warblers — light, active creatures — 

 flutter about the terminal foliage, and, 

 with almost the skill (if a humming-bird, 

 pick insects from leaf or blossom. The 

 vireos patiently explore the under sides 

 of leaves and odd nooks and corners to 

 see that no skulker escapes. The wood- 

 peckers, nuthatches, and creepers attend 

 to the tree ti'unks and limbs, examining 

 carefully each inch of Ijark for insects' 

 eggs and lar\':e, or exca\'ating for tlie 

 ants and borers they hear at work within. 



On the ground the hunt is continued 

 by the thrushes, sparrows, and other 

 birds, who feed upon the innumerable 

 forms of terrestrial insects. Few places 

 in which insects exist are neglected : e^•en 

 some species which pass their earlier 



stages or entire lives in the water are 

 preyed upon by aquatic birds. 



A CONST. \XT WAREARE AG.VIXST INSECTS 



Birds digest their food so rapidly that 

 it is difficult to estimate from the con- 

 tents of a bird's stomach at a given time 

 liow much it eats during the dav. The 

 stomach of a A'ellow-billed cuckoo shot 

 at I) o'clock in the morning contained the 

 partially digested remains of 43 tent cat- 

 erpillars, but how many it would have 

 eaten before night no one can sa}-. 



^Ir. E. H. Fi^rbush, ornithologist of 

 the lioard of Agriculture of Massachu- 

 setts, states that the stomachs of four 

 chickadees contained i,o:?8 eggs of the 

 cankerworm. The stomachs of four other 

 birds (if the same species contained about 

 ()00 eggs and 103 female moths of the 

 cankerworm. The average numfier of 

 eggs found in 20 of these moths was 185, 

 and, as it is estimated that a chickadee 

 ma)' eat 30 female cankerworm moths 

 per day during the 25 davs which these 

 moths crawl up trees, it follows that in 

 this period each chickadee would destroy 

 138,750 eggs of this noxious insect. 



70S 



