164 
It seems peculiarly fond of the society of* 
man, and it must be confessed that, in some 
parts of the world, it is often protected by 
his interested care. It is not only an inha- 
bitant of Europe, but is likewise found in 
Asia and America. From observing its 
utility in destroying Insects, it has long 
been a custom, in many parts of the United 
States, to fix a small box at the end of a 
long pole, in gardens and about houses, 
as a place for it to build in. In these box- 
es the little creatures form their nests and 
hatch their young ; which the parent birds 
feed with a variety of different insects, par- 
ticularly those species most injurious to 
gardens. Barton in his Fragments of the 
Natural History of Pensylvania, informs us 
that " a gentleman who was at the trouble 
of watching these birds, for the purpose, 
observed that the parents generally went 
from the nest and returned with insects from 
forty to sixty times in an hour, and that 
in one particular hour they carried food no 
fewer than seventy one times. In this bu- 
siness they were engaged the greater part 
of the day. Allowing twelve hours to be 
