32 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH. AND GAME COMMISSION. 



Yellow-Billed Cuckoo {Coccysus aniericaniis). — " Of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, 

 twenty-one stomachs (collected from May to October, inclusive) were examined. 

 The contents consisted of 355 caterpillars, eighteen beetles, twenty-three grass- 

 hoppers, thirty-one sawflies, fourteen bugs, six flies, and twelve spiders. As in the 

 case of the Black-Billed Cuckoo, most of the caterpillars belong to hairy species, and 

 many of them were of large size. One stomach contained twelve American tent 

 caterpillars; another 217 fall webworms. The beetles were distributed among 

 several families, but all more or less harmful to agriculture. In the same stomach 

 which contained the tent caterpillars were two Colorado potato beetles ; in another 

 were three goldsmith beetles and remains of several other large beetles ; besides 

 ordinary grasshoppers were several katydids and three crickets. The sawflies were 

 in the laval stage, in which they resemble caterpillars so closely that they are 

 commonly called false caterpillars by entomologists, and, perhaps, this likeness may 

 be the reason the Cuckoos eat them so freely. The bugs consisted of stink bugs 

 and cicadas or dogday harvest flies, with the single exception of one wheel bug, 

 which was the only useful insect eaten, unless the spiders be counted as such." 

 (Beal.) 



KINGFISHER. Family Alcedinidae. 



Kingfisher (C^ry/if rt/cyf«). — Our one species of this family is rated destructive 

 by fishculturists and is denied legal protection. We must remember, however, that 

 value of birds to man which cannot be expressed in dollars and cents. The King- 

 fisher is far too interesting and characteristic a feature of our ponds, lakes and 

 waterways to be exterminated. Admitting that certain individuals of the species 

 are injurious, it does not follow that the whole race should be condemned. 



WOODPECKERS. Family Picidse. 



" Farmers are prone to look upon Woodpeckers with suspicion. When the birds 

 are seen scrambling over fruit trees and pecking at the bark, and fresh holes are 

 found in the tree, it is concluded that they are doing harm. Careful observers, 

 however, have noticed that, excepting a single species, these birds rarely leave any 

 important mark on a healthy tree, but that when a tree is affected by wood-boring 

 larvae, and insects are accurately located, dislodged, and devoured. In case the holes 

 from which the borers are taken are afterwards occupied and enlarged by colonies of 

 ants, these ants in turn are drawn out and eaten." (Beal.) 



Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates piibescens). — This our smallest and most 



