BIRDS AS REGULATORS OE OUTBREAKS. 75 



insects, probably catching them in the air. Seven barn- 

 swallows had eaten one hundred and thirty-nine, eight eaves- 

 swallows three hundred and twenty-six, five bank-swallows 

 one hundred and four, and ten purple martins two hundred 

 and sixty-five locusts. 



The vireos and shrikes were found to eat many of the 

 pests, while some of the grosbeaks and finches ate the eggs 

 as well as the 'hoppers. Three bobolinks had devoured an 

 average of fourteen locusts each, while nine meadow-larks 

 had taken two hundred and thirteen of the pests besides some 

 of their eggs. Fifty-one locusts were taken from the stomach 

 of a single yellow-headed blackbird, while the Baltimore 

 oriole, Brewer's blackbird, and the purple grackle were noted 

 as feeding almost exclusively upon the pests when the latter 

 were abundant. 



Even the raven, the crow, the magpie, and the blue-jay fol- 

 lowed the prevailing fashion in the feathered world, eating 

 large numbers of the locusts, although no doubt they did not 

 wholly neglect the occupants of any of the nests of the 

 smaller birds with which they came in contact. The flycatch- 

 ers and pewees proved to be doing good service, while the 

 stomachs of the whippoorwill and nighthawk were crowded 

 with 'hoppers, three hundred and forty-eight being taken from 

 seven specimens of the latter species. 



It seems almost incredible that the tiny ruby-throated hum- 

 ming-bird should also have followed the fashion, yet Professor 

 Aughey assures us that a specimen caught by a cat " had four 

 small locusts in its stomach." After this we are prepared to 

 learn that the stately kingfisher varies his scaly diet with an 

 occasional 'hopper. Nor is it surprising that ten specimens 

 of the highly insectivorous yellow-billed cuckoo had eaten 

 four hundred and sixteen locusts as well as one hundred and 

 fifty-two other insects. 



The woodpeckers evidently varied their usual diet to an 

 extraordinary degree on account of the presence of the grass- 



