BY THE WAYSIDE. 
5 
gleaning food also among the twigs and leaves. 
The catbird is also commonly present, especial¬ 
ly if a body of water is near at hand, in which 
case the Maryland yellow throat will also gen¬ 
erally be found. And in the branches and 
among the leaves sparrows and warblers are 
** ■ 
abundant, ever searching for the tiny foes 
I • ‘ 
to plant-life. 
The transition from the shrubby border of 
the forest to the forest proper is generally 
gradual, and there is more or less connection 
between the insect life as well as the bird 
life in the two areas.. On the whole insects 
exist in the forest in less variety than in the 
shrubby growth or the open fields. As a 
rule there is little food for them on the ground 
beneath dense woods, so that their food supply 
is limited to the trees themselves. Upon these, 
however, they are very often destructively 
abundant. The bark is full of the burrows 
of various beetles, some species of which go 
deep into the trunk or larger branches, while 
the twigs and leaves are infested by many 
sorts of bark-lice, plant-lice and caterpillars. 
Of the leaf-feeding caterpillars, some go to the 
ground to pupate, and there they form an 
important part of the food of the ruffed grouse, 
which is one of the few birds that searches 
the soil surface in dense woods. The wood¬ 
peckers look after the bark and trunk borers, 
assisted more or less by the nut-hatches and 
creepers; while the plant-lice and the leaf- 
caterpillars are always in danger from the 
hungry beaks of the chickadees, kinglets, war¬ 
blers, vireos, ovenbirds and thrushes. 
Even the comparatively few insects found in 
marshes, along the shores of ponds, and liv¬ 
ing in the water itself are not free from bird 
attack. The blackbirds of various kinds, the 
numerous sparrows that live in lowlands, the 
snipe, woodcock, sandpipers, plovers, and rails, 
the herons and bitterns, the ducks, coots and 
grebes, all find in these insects part of their 
diet. The catbird makes a specialty of catch¬ 
ing dragon-flies just after they have emerged 
from their nymph stage, when they are wait¬ 
ing for the wings to harden before flying away. 
Prof. F. H. Herrick has found that the young 
catbirds in the nests are fed freely with these 
soft-bodied dragon-flies. The Maryland yellow 
throat and the swamp-sparrow are especially 
likely to be seen in the region of running or 
standing water, getting much of their food 
from the insects found there. 
Practically all of the insects that prey upon 
vegetation exist in one stage of life as winged 
adults which fly through the air either during 
the day or during the night. At such times 
they are liable to attack by certain birds 
which patrol the air with great efficiency. By 
day the general regions of the air are super¬ 
vised by the swifts, swallows, and martins. 
HEAD OF HAWK. 
Over field, wood, orchard, meadow, lake and 
pond these aerial police are constantly on the 
alert to check the careers of the evildoers. 
When the insects fly high the swallows are 
after them in the upper air; when they fly 
low the swallows skim the surface of soil and 
water to catch them. Flies and butterflies, 
beetles and bugs, ants and aphides, grasshop¬ 
pers and leafhoppers, mosquitoes and moths, all 
fall victims to these fowds of the air. 
But the birds just named are by no means 
the only watchers of the flying insects. The 
space near the trees and fences, the stumps 
and rocky cliffs, is looked after by those birds 
which rest quietly on some perch until an in¬ 
sect comes near and then fly after it. With 
us the most important of these flycatchers are 
the kingbird, the phoebe, and the crested fly¬ 
catcher, although the wood pewee and various 
other species also render efficient assistance. 
And even the space within the limits of the 
tree branches is looked after by the vireos and 
warblers, especially the redstart, the latter 
