17 
[ 277 ] 
ration. Ent a moment’s reflection will show the erroneousness of 
this conclusion, ot which the case now before us furnishes a suffi¬ 
cient illustration. Here is an orchard, one-fourth part of which 
aas been devasted by these destructive caterpillars. The pre¬ 
sumption is that their progeny, next year, will sweep the field. 
It behooves the owner, therefore, to set to work in earnest to col- 
ect and destroy this almost countless number of cocoons, and 
rom any ordinary degree of search it may be reasonably feared 
flat many will escape detection. But if he, or any one whom he 
nay have it in his power to consult, knows enough of entomology 
;o understand that all this work has been done for him by his 
carasitic friends, and much more thoroughly than he could do it 
le is at once relieved from all labor and anxiety. 
It was in the case of the larva of the Tussock-moth that I made 
he interesting observation, last summer, of the manner in which 
uch birds as the American cuckoo contrive to eat the hairy cater- 
fillars without filling their stomachs with indigestible material. 
Whilst sitting in the porch of Mr. Jesse K. Fell’s residence in 
formal, where I was visiting, with the ad interim horticultural 
ommittee, my attention was attracted to a cuckoo regaling him- 
elf upon these caterpillars which were infesting, in considerable 
lumbers, a kind of imported larch which was growing- near the 
louse. My curiosity was excited by seeing a little cloud of hair 
Loating down upon the air from tHe place where the bird was 
tanding. Upon approaching a little nearer I could see that he 
eized the worm by one extremity, and drawing it gradually into 
is mouth, shaved off, as he did so, with the sharp edges of his 
ill, the hairy coating of the caterpillar and scattered it upon the 
iflnd. It has been long known that the American cuckoo is one 
f the very few birds that will eat the hairy caterpillars, but I be- 
eve that it has not been before observed how it is that he per- 
;>rms this useful part, without at the same time disturbing his 
igestion. 
Yol. II—35 
