304 USEFUL BIRDS. 
chips, a sort of squeak, and a series of querulous twitters, 
uttered when the bird is angry. The males are sometimes 
pugnacious, and have been known to fight to the death. 
The Chippy feeds very largely in spring and early summer 
on small caterpillars, and is therefore very useful in the 
orchard, Mr.. Kirkland saw 
a single bird eat fifty-four 
cankerworms ‘at one sitting. 
The Chippy is destructive to 
hairy caterpillars. It was 
Fig. 135.—Moth of the tent caterpillar, the Chipping Sparrow that 
ee frequently interfered with 
experiments upon gipsy caterpillars, by breaking through 
the net that enclosed them and stealing the hairy worms. 
This bird is a persistent enemy of the caterpillar of the 
brown-tail moth, the tent caterpillar, and that of the tus- 
sock moth. Nocturnal moths, particularly Arctians, and 
Tineid moths are caught in the air. Currant worms do not 
come amiss. It is destructive to the codling moth and the 
moths of the tent caterpillar and the forest tent caterpillar. 
In all, thirty-eight per cent. of. the food of the Chipping 
Sparrow consists of animal matter, three-fourths of which is 
made up of noxious insects. 
In June ninety-three per 
cent. of the food consists of 
insects, of which thirty-six 
per cent. is grasshoppers, 
caterpillars form twenty-five 
per cent., and leaf-eating 
beetles six per cent. 
I have been much im- 
pressed with the value of this 
bird in the garden during the 
spring and summer months. : 
It destroys at least three Fig. 186.—Chipping Sparrows bunting 
species of caterpillar on the Reh wena: 
cabbage. It is the most destructive of all birds to the 
injurious pea louse (Vectarophora destructor), which caused 
a loss of three million dollars to the pea crop of a single 
