INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 287 



it is found to be particularly useful in clearing from 

 noxious insects. 



Amongst the Grallce or Waders, many of the long- 

 billed birds eat the larvae of insects as well as worms : 

 and they form also no inconsiderable part of the food of 

 our domestic poultry, especially turkeys, which may be 

 daily seen busily engaged in hunting for them, and, as 

 well as ducks, will greedily devour the larger insects, as 

 Melolonthae, and in North America Tettigoniee. Mr. 

 Sheppard was much amused one day in July last year 

 with observing a cow which had taken refuge in a pond, 

 probably from the gad-fly, and was standing nearly up 

 to its belly in water. A fleet of ducks surrounded it, 

 which kept continually jumping at the flies that alighted 

 upon it. The cow, as if sensible of the service thev 

 were rendering her, stood perfectly still though assailed 

 and pecked on all sides by them. The partridge takes 

 her young brood to an ant-hill, where they feast upon 

 the larvae and pupae, which Swammerdam informs us 

 were sold at market in his time to feed various kinds of 

 birds 3 . Dr. Clarke also mentions having seen them, as 

 well as the ants themselves, exposed to sale in the market 

 at Moscow as a food for nightingales 5 . Latreille tells 

 us that singing birds are fed in France with the larva? of 

 Formica rufa. 



But the Linnean order of Passeres affords the greatest 

 number of insectivorous birds ; indeed almost allthe species 

 of this order, except perhaps the Columbse and the cross- 

 bill, and other Loxiae, more or less eat insects. Amongst 

 the thrush tribe, the blackbird, though he will have his 

 share of our gooseberries and currants, assists greatly in 

 • Bib. Nat. i. 126. b. b Travels, i. 110. 



