ENEMIES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM. 



85 



Again, the shrike, or butcher-bird, dearly loves to select the 

 long, sharp thorns of the orange tree, on which to impale hia 

 victims, insect, lizard, or small snake, as the case may be. 



He prefers trees that have long branches, and these are the 

 very ones, as a rule, that are most thickly infested by the scale 

 insects, especially the long scale. 



In impaling his prey on the thorns, the bird moves his little 

 claws freely over the branch, and some of the insects clinging 

 to it are sure to adhere to them, when he flies off to another 

 tree or grove, and the scale is rubbed off and finds a new field 

 for its work. The butcher-bird also frequently transfers his 

 impaled victims from one tree to another, and if the first has 

 been infested with the scale and the second has not, the latter 



cannot much longer boast of its freedom ; and even when the 

 bird eats his prey from the thorn on which it was first impaled, 



some of the scale insects, that are certain to adhere to it, will 



cling to his beak, and more likely than not, be rubbed off on 



some other tree. 



We have a friendly feeling for the butcher-bird ; he is such 



a neat, Quakerish-looking, fat, chubby little fellow, and so 



familiarly saucy withal ; and we are sorry we cannot acquit him 



of helping to spread the enemies of our groves, albeit he does it 



without malice prepense. 



High winds are also important and wide-spread factors in 



the distribution of scale insects, all of which are small and light ; 



nursery stock and matured fruit itself are also active agents in 



the matter. 



What is this much talked of, much fought against, scale 

 insect, you ask ? 



For full and detailed information on this point, as on that 

 of all the insect enemies and friends of the orange, we would 

 refer our readers to the valuable work on " orange insects," 

 written and published by William H, Ashmead, of Jacksonville, 

 Florida ; and also .to those of Prof. Comstock and Dr. C. J. 

 Kenworthy. This book, being devoted exclusively to the one 

 subject, deals more extensively with the enemies of the orange, 

 than the limits and object of our present work permit us to do. 



