206 



THE GYPSY MOTH. 



of locusts contributed, together with the want of rain, to 

 starve the inhabitants in that region in 1891 and 1892. 

 One of the causes, he says, which permitted such a numer- 

 ous propagation of insect pests was the almost complete de- 

 struction of birds, most of them having been killed and 

 sent abroad by wagon loads for ladies' hats. A law for the 

 protection of birds has now been enacted, and, says Clerc}^, 

 *'the poor little creatures are doing their best to reoccupy 

 their old places in our woods and gardens. This reoccu- 

 pation, however, does not go on as rapidly as did their 

 destruction." 



Many species of water birds, the gulls and terns especially, 

 are useful as insect destroyers. In 1848 the crops of the 

 Mormons in Utah were attacked by the Western cricket 

 hrus simplex) y which came down in great armies fi'om the 

 highlands about Salt Lake. These crickets had already 

 destroyed a considerable portion of the crops, when great 

 flocks of gulls appeared and ate the crickets. Hon. George 

 Q. Cannon says: Black crickets came down by millions 

 and destroyed our grain crops ; promising fields of wheat 

 in the morning were by evening as smooth as a man's hand, 

 — devoured by the crickets. Sea gulls came by hundreds 

 and thousands, and, before the crops were entirely destroyed, 

 these gulls devoured the insects so that our fields were 

 entirely freed from them." * 



This occurrence is well authenticated and testified to by 

 many eye-witnesses. f 



While some ornithologists regard birds as by far the most 

 important natural enemies of injurious insects, many ento- 

 mologists believe that insect and vegetable parasites are more 

 useful in this respect than birds ; yet some of the most 

 eminent economic entomologists, who have had occasion to 

 observe the insect-eating habits of birds in connection with 

 great outbreaks of insect pests, have been among the first to 



* "Insect Life," Vol. 7, No. 3, page 275. 



t See the nineteenth annual report of the secretary of the Massachusetts Board 

 of Agriculture, 1871, page 76; the report of the United States Commissioner of Ag- 

 riculture, 1871, page 79 ; also the second report of the United States Entomological 

 Commission for 1878 and 1879, relating to the Rocky Mountain locust, page 166, 

 A. S. Packard, Jr. 



