NEW HAMPSHIRE NATURE STUDIES 
I 6 
diagram as this. But do not copy this outline on the board ; let the 
children make their own discoveries . When the topic is fairly 
worked out. but not before, you might, if you choose, read to them 
the following paragraphs. Then drop the subject and take up some- 
thing' else. 
o 
The Birds and the Insects 
One whose house is surrounded by lawns and shrubbery, with a 
garden near at hand, need not go out ot doors in order to see evidence 
of the way in which the world of birds is set over against the woild 
of insects to keep them in check. The robins on the lawn are search- 
ing for atude worms — which are not insects — and for cutwoims, 
which are insects. The chipping sparrow and the wren in the 
shrubbery are always searching for insect food. The bluebird upon 
the post and the phoebe upon the bare twig are on a similar quest, 
while the warblers and the 
vireos darting through the foli- 
age are after tiny insects. 
The birds likewise watch 
over the orchard, feeding free- 
ly upon the enemies of apple 
and other fruit trees. The 
trunks of these trees are often 
attacked by borers which gnaw 
holes in the bark and wood, 
causing the death of the trees. 
The woodpeckers are always at 
work hunting for these borers 
and bringing them from their 
hiding places by means of their 
barbed tongues. On the out- 
side of the hark of the trunk 
and branches the bark-lice and 
Female Red-winged Blackbird twig-hoppers are at work, and 
these are sought for by the 
nuthatches, creepers, and chickadees. In winter also the bark is 
the hiding-place for the hibernating stages of many insects, like the 
plant-lice or aphides, which in summer feed upon the leaves. 
These are also devoured by the birds named. In a single day a 
