BIRDS AS CONSERVATORS OF THE FOREST. 245 



their diet varies but little with the season. In the dead of winter, when all 

 insect life is apparently at a standstill, these birds still demand and obtain their 

 daily fill of their favorite meat. Flies and bees no longer sport in the sunshine, 

 butterflies and flowers are replaced by sleet and snow, the beetles are either dead 

 or snugly ensconced in some crevice in the bark, awaiting the return of warmth, 

 while the larvae repose in their burrows of solid wood, apparently safe from all 

 disturbance. But undaunted by any degree of cold and undeterred by any amount 

 of labor our intrepid little friends tear open the secure retreats in the bark, or 

 chisel into the more solid wood, and drag forth the luckless insects to certain 

 destruction. 



In the Report on Forest Insects by the United States Entomological Commis- 

 sion, some twenty-five species of Cerambycid and Buprestid beetles are noted as 

 preying upon the ash tree alone, and thirty-five upon the pine. When we reflect 

 that the family Cerambycidae contains upwards of 7,500 species, of which 600 are 

 found in America, and all of which pass their larval stage within the substance 

 of some tree or woody plant, and that many of them remain in the larval state 

 two or three years, and eat all the time, it is not difficult to comprehend the 

 immense amount of damage that these creatures inflict upon forest trees and other 

 plants. It is not probable that there is any other agency more destructive to 

 timber than this family of beetles. Nor is timber safe even after it has been 

 cut. Logs lying in the mill yard or forest will be much injured, if not ruined, 

 in a single season if some precautions are not taken to prevent these creatures 

 from depositing their eggs. So long do some of these larvae live in the wood that 

 it has frequently happened that they have emerged from an article of furniture 

 after it has passed into household use. 



It is far within the limits of probability to say that each individual bird of the 

 four species already discussed destroys during every day of its life at least twelve 

 woodboring beetles, either in the adult or larval form. In any extensive area of 

 forest land, like the Adirondack Woods, there must be thousands of these birds, and 

 the numbers of insects that ar3 every year stopped in their career of devastation must 

 reach into the millions. Is there any other agency so effectual in the destruction 

 of these pests, or so efficient in holding them in check ? In orchards, or even in 

 parks, it may be possible to combat insect enemies by insecticides or other artificial 

 appliances, but in the forests this becomes wholly out of the question, and it 

 behooves the forester to take every advantage of such forces as nature has kindly 

 placed at his disposal, and among these the insectivorous birds must take high 

 rank. It is unfortunate that the three-toed woodpeckers are not so numerous as 

 most other species, and for this reason they should be rigidly protected. 



