16 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
or red birds, and three or four blackbirds 
perched on the branches of a fig tree. I feel 
pretty well acquainted with the Florida birds. 
Leslie F. Edwards, Jr. 
April 16. Chicago, 111. 
Letters Received. 
Fred Sager of Wheeler writes about two 
owls; the secretary wishes he had told us what 
kind they were. It seems hardly fair to catch 
them and p them shut up, however. Es¬ 
ther Brotzman of Durand tells of an oddly 
marked robin; is she quite sure she remembers 
the colors? White shows on the tail of all 
robins, and, by the way, who can tell 
where it is? Ruth Brotzman has noticed 
how the robins catch angleworms, and 
h’as been feeding crumbs and seeds to the birds, 
it is hard to tell what the strange bird in the 
flock was; next time perhaps she will notice 
more carefully just where the colors were, as 
well as other points about the bird. Bessie 
Armstrong, of Kilbourn, has an interesting ac¬ 
count of a robin’s nest which she is watching. 
Natalie Snider is watching the robins, too, and 
has a good account of a family. Lela Fow¬ 
ler describes a bird she has found; unfortu¬ 
nately this is not full enough so that the sec¬ 
retary can tell the kind it is. Elfreda 
Hemple of Appleton writes of her tame 
canary. The yellow warbler and the 
gold finch are both sometime called “wild 
canary;” which one does Elfreda refer to? 
Otto Romag of Park Falls describes a turtle 
dove; does he not mean the mourning dove? 
And Eunice Mulholland has something to say 
about the robin. 
Since last month the following school Au¬ 
dubon societies have been formed: Caledonia, 
25 members, Miss Francks, teacher; River 
Falls, 23 members, Miss Padden, teacher; and 
Crivitz, 27 members. 
WOODBINE FOLK. 
(Continued from page 4) 
from the spots of yellow and white on the 
black wings of the moth'. 
A very similar small crawler is pale bluish 
in color with lines of black and bands of 
orange. This is Eudryas grata, and the moth 
is beautiful, with creamy white fore-wings, 
edged with violet and brown while the hind 
wings are clear yellow with a little brown. 
These caterpillars are much alike and have a 
humpy look and are by no means as attrac¬ 
tive as the larger woodbine-folk. Both trans¬ 
form in the earth or in soft wood. 
Beetles may be found hiding among the 
leaves, and harvest-spiders, common spiders, 
flies of various kinds, while leaf-cutter bees 
may be seen cutting pieces out of the leaves 
to line their holes, and unpleasant aphis often 
makes the leaves sticky, sometimes even drip¬ 
ping, with its sweet, honev-like excretion. 
Bees seek the nectar of the pale green flow¬ 
ers, and mosquitoes hide under the leaves dur¬ 
ing the heat of the da} 7 , and in pursuit of them 
come the great dragon-flies, especially at dusk 
when the mosquitoes begin flying again. 
Birds, especially orioles, search' the vines for 
the caterpillars of the hawkmoths, and vireos 
peer and pry under the leaves for any small 
insect luckless enough to come . in their way. 
One kind of visitors may spoil the finest 
caterpillars. As the birds search the cater¬ 
pillars to eat or to give to their young, so the 
parasitic flies seek them to sting. Each sting 
means the laying of an egg in or on the vic¬ 
tim, an egg which will soon give a grub whose 
food will be the tissues of the unfortunate 
caterpillar. If the sting pierces the skin of the 
crawler the egg is laid in its body, and some 
of these flies always lay eggs thus. Others 
merely fasten the eggs on the skin of the 
caterpillar, and the grub eats its way through 
the skin of the soft tissues of the crawler 
and feeds on them. In either case the end is 
death to the caterpillar and life to the grub 
which, in time, pupates and becomes a fly. 
Big black ants frequent the vines in search 
of food, and often carry off the newly hatched 
caterpillars. 
It is interesting to see how many of these 
creatures one can find on one woodbine—that 
is the woodbine on one house or over one 
piazza. I have found them all, with the ad¬ 
dition of an English sparrows’ nest, on the 
woodbine on one side of a house. The Jap¬ 
anese woodbine is just as populous as the Vir¬ 
ginia creeper. 
Most of these creatures may be found on 
grape viiies as well as on woodbine. 
Caroline Gray Soule. 
[In the description of Limenitis misippus oh 
page 4 of the May Wayside the word “frass” 
was misprinted “grass.”—Ed.] 
