INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 165 
native of Africa and America, lives upon the locusts and Ixodes ricinus, 
which it picks in great numbers from the backs of cattle; but none are 
reater devourers of insects in this order than rooks. It is for the grubs 
of Melolontha, Tipula, &c., that they follow the plough ; and they always 
frequent the meadows in which these larva: abound, destroying them in 
vast numbers, Kalm tells us, that when the little crow was extirpated 
from Virginia at an enormous expense, the inhabitants would willingly 
have them brought back again at double the price.1_ The icteric oriole is 
kept by the Americans in their houses for the sake of clearing them of 
insects ; and the purple grackle is so useful in this respect, that when, on 
account of their consuming grain, the American farmers in New England 
offered a reward of three-pence a head for them, and they were in con- 
sequence nearly extirpated, insects increased to such a degree as to cause 
a total loss of the herbage, and the inhabitants were obliged to obtain hay 
for their cattle not only from Pennsylvania, but even from Great Britain” 
Of this order also is the bee-cuckoo (Cuculus indicator), so celebrated for 
its instinct, by which it serves as a guide to the wild bees’ nests in Africa. 
Sparrman describes this bird, which is somewhat larger than a common 
sparrow, as giving this information in a singular manner, In the evening 
and morning, which are its meal-times, it excites the attention of the 
Hottentots, colonists, and honey-ratel, by the cry of cherr, cherr, cherr, 
and conducts them to the tree or spot in which the bees’ nest is con- 
cealed, continually repeating this cry. When arrived at the spot, it hovers 
over it; and then alighting on some neighbouring tree or bush, sits in 
silence, expecting to come in for its share of the spoil, which is that part 
of the comb containing the brood. The wryneck and the woodpeckers, 
the nuthatch and tree-creeper, live entirely upon insects and their eggs 4, 
which they pick out of decayed trees, and out of the bark of living ones. 
The former also frequents grass-plots and ant-hills, into which it darts its 
long flexible tongue, and so draws out its prey. The woodpecker likewise 
draws insects out of their holes by means of the same organ, which for 
ee 
thinks that it impales only G, vernalis, which he has often found transfixed, but 
never G, stercorarius. (Schneid. Mag. 259.) I must remark, however, that I last 
summer observed two humble-bees quite alive impaled on the thorns of a hedge near 
my house, which had most probably been so placed by this species, L. excubitor being 
rarely found except in mountainous wilds. (Bewick’s Birds, i. 61.) And Prof. 
Sander states that on opening this bird (Z. collurio) he has sometimes found in its 
stomach nothing but grasshoppers, and at others small beetles and other insects, 
(Naturforscher, Stik, xviii, 284.) Mr. Dunlop, in a letter in Loudon’s Gardener's 
Magazine for May, 1842 (No. exlvi. p. 269.), states, that upon examining a branch 
of hawthorn on which he had for some days observed a pair of fly-catchers feeding 
their young, he found upwards ofa dozen humble-bees (Bombus terrestris) fixed 
upon the spines as securely as if done by the hand of man, some being alive, and 
others dead and partly devoured, Mr. Dunlop, after removing the bees to watch 
the process of the birds in placing them, had soon the satisfaction of seeing the fly- 
catchers catch them on the wing, carry them direct to the branch (which was a dead 
one, apparently on account of the greater hardness of the spines), and thrust them 
on the spines as above described. Mr. W. W. Saunders found a number of the 
Yellow underwing moth (Zriphena pronuba) thus fixed. 
 Stillingfl, Tracts, 175. Linn. Trans. v. 105. note ». 
a Bingley, ii, 287—290. 5 Sparrman, ii, 186, 
* Bewick’s Birds, i, Pref, xxii, 130. 
mu $3 
