CULTIVATED FRUIT. 57 



to have molested them. Many had taken fruit, but had drawn on 

 nature's supply instead of man's. All the trees in the orchard were 

 watched, but birds apparent!}^ did not rob them, a fact in striking 

 contrast with the notorious pillaging by birds in the fruit-growing 

 regions of California. In California birds also do much damao-e in 

 spring by eating the buds and blossoms of fruit trees, but at Marshall 

 Hall no appreciable loss is caused in this v^ay. White-throated spar- 

 rows occasional]}' feed on buds and blossoms, and on one occasion 

 (April 25, 1901) three of these birds were seen mutilating pear blos- 

 soms in the kitchen garden, but beyond this no example of such 

 depredations was observed. 



Grapes. — Grapes are not raised for market at Marshall Hall. In the 

 Bryan kitchen garden there is a trellis for family use, but birds did no 

 appreciable injur}^ to the grapes that grew on it. 



Tomatoes. — Catbirds were reported to be ruining the tomato crop 

 on the Hungerford farm during the third week of June, 1899. The 

 place was visited and every tomato that had reddened at all was found 

 to have been pecked. The injury was causing heav}^ loss to the farm, 

 for the fruit at that time brought a high price. The patch was watched 

 for several hours, but not a catbird entered it. Nine chickens, how- 

 ever, stole up from a small house on the shore and went from plant 

 to plant, eating greedily. To make doubly sure that catbirds had 

 no share in the mischief, 15 individuals were collected from the neigh- 

 boring dell and the bushes about the patch, and examination was made 

 of the stomach contents. No trace of tomatoes was found. 



Melons. — The only fruit grown for market that suffered from the 

 depredations of native birds was the melon, and it was attacked by 

 only one species — the crow. In numbers from three or four to a 

 dozen at a time crows began to injure melons about August 1 and con- 

 tinued for three weeks, attacking both watermelons and cantaloupes, 

 but preferrmg the former. Each crow would peck at a melon a dozen 

 times or so and then pass on to another. If no protective measures 

 had been taken, the crop would often have been a total loss, and in 

 spite of all efforts from 5 to 20 percent of the melons grown at all 

 distant from buildings were punctured (fig. 21). Carcasses of crows, 

 strings with long white streamers attached, an improvised miniature 

 windmill that revolved and struck noisily against a piece of metal, and 

 a bit of bright tin suspended from a string so that it turned with 

 every breath of air and reflected the sun about the field were some of 

 the devices used to frighten the wary arid suspicious marauders. In 

 1873, 1871, and 1875, when the melon crop was so important that 1 or 

 5 acres, containing from 3,000 to 1,000 hills, were given up to it, the 

 method of protection used in the rice fields of the South was adopted: 

 from sunrise to sunset a negro with an old musket and plenty of pow- 



