166 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 
this purpose is bony at the end and barbed, and furnished with a curious 
apparatus of muscles to enable them to throw it forward with great force. 
Some species spit the insects on their tongue, and thus bring them into 
their mouth. In America, the tree-creeper is furnished with a box at the 
end of a long pole to entice it to build in gardens, which it is found to be 
particularly useful in clearing from noxious insects. 
Aniongst the Gralle or Waders, many of the long-billed birds eat the 
farvee 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 cockchafers, and in North America, 
Cicade. Mr. Sheppard was much amused, one day in July, 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 fligs that alighted upon it. The 
cow, as if sensible of the service they 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 larva and 
upg, which Swammerdam informs us were sold at market in his time to 
eed various kinds of birds.! 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.2 Latreille tells us that singing birds are fed in 
France with the larvz of the horse-ant (Formica rufa). 
But the Linnean order of Passeres affords the greatest number of in- 
sectivorous birds; indeed almost all the species of this order, except 
perhaps the pigeon-tribe, and the cross-bill, and other Loxia, 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 clearing 
our gardens of caterpillars; and the locust-eating thrush is still more 
useful in the countries subject to that dreadful pest; these birds never 
appear but with the locusts, and then accompany them in astonishing 
numbers, preying upon them in their larva state. ‘The common sparrow, 
though proscribed as a most mischievous bird, destroys a vast number of 
insects. Bradley has calculated that a single pair, havmg young to main- 
tain, will destroy 3360 caterpillars in a week. They also prey upon 
butterflies and other winged insects. The fly-catchers (Muscicapa), and 
the warblers (Motacilla), which include our sweetest songsters, are almost 
entirely supported by insects; so that were it not for these despised 
creatures we should be deprived of some of our greatest pleasures, and 
half the interest and delight of our vernal walks would be done away. 
Our groves would no longer be vocal; our little domestic favourites the 
red-breast and the wren would desert us; and the heavens would be de- 
populated. We should lose too some of the most esteemed dainties of our 
tables, one of which, the wheat-ear, is said to be attracted to our downs 
by a particular insect.t Lastly, insects are the sole food of swallows, 
which are always on the wing hawking for them, and their flight is regulated 
by that of their prey. When the atmosphere is dry and clear, and their 
small game flies high, they seek the skies : when moist, and the insects are 
low or upon the ground, they descend, and just skim the surface of the earth 
1 Bib, Nat. i, 126. b. 2 Travels, i. 110. 
5 Reaum, ii, 408, 4 Bingley, ii. 874 
