42 Psyche [February 
stalks of several cornfields examined in the spring of 1923 and 
listed in table 2. 
When birds feed in the spring on larvae contained in corn- 
stalks that were piled up the previous fall and remained in such 
condition through the winter, an interesting phenomenon is 
frequently noticed. In the spring, larvae desert the wet corn- 
stalks in the lower parts of such a pile, migrating to the dry stalks 
above where conditions for transformation are much more 
favorable. It is on the larvae contained in these dry stalks on 
the top of the pile that birds such as grackles and blackbirds 
feed extensively so that as the spring advances it is frequently 
found that few larvae remain in the lower stalks of the pile 
because of the migration of the stalks above, and a few larvae re- 
main in the dry stocks on the top of the pile because birds have 
shredded the stalks and removed a high percentage of them. 
This condition has been found several times experimentally, and 
has been noticed in several localities in the field where cornstalks 
have passed the winter in piles. 
Observations as to the extent of feeding by birds on larvae 
in cornstalks standing undisturbed in the field in the spring of 
1924 were possible in only a few localities, mostly in very small 
lots of stalks because of a law in the state of Massachusetts 
compelling all persons to destroy standing corn in the fall of 
1923. Those found, for the most part in small back-yard gardens, 
often showed evidence of extensive feeding by birds. Thus a 
small plot of about 1,500 hills of standing corn in Wakefield, 
Mass., showed that birds had removed a very high percentage 
of the larvae from the stalks. In various localities stubble and 
stalks lying on the ground were shredded and many larvae no 
doubt removed. As far as these observations were possible, 
they coincide with the results obtained in the experimental 
work already described. 
The question has been asked whether birds know that 
infested cornstalks contain larvae or whether the feeding that 
they do is more in the nature of an accident. Beside the ex- 
periment at Medford, Mass., mentioned in table 3 from which 
birds are credited with removing 68 per cent of the larvae a like 
experiment was placed in the fall of 1923, similar in every respect 
