304 



USEFUL BIRDS. 



Fig. 135. — Moth of the tent caterpillar 

 natural size. 



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 

 the Chipping Sparrow that 

 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 

 species of caterpillar on the 

 cabbage. It is the most destructive of all birds to the 

 injurious pea louse (JVectarqphora destructor') , which caused 

 a loss of three million dollars to the pea crop of a single 



Fig. 136.- 



■ Chipping Sparrows hunting 

 beet worms. 



