ENTOMOLOGY. 
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persecuting and killing these birds, as some gardeners so frequently do, 
every means should be taken to encourage them to breed, by protecting 
their nests. 
The next friend to the gardener is the nightingale, whenever they 
resort to gardens, because they are also entirely insect-eaters, devouring 
great numbers of the caterpillars and grubs, as well as the moths, 
butterflies, and beetles, from which they are produced. Along with 
this may be ranked three pretty birds, called chats, viz. the whin-chat, 
stone-chat, and the wheat~ear; but these are field birds, and, therefore, 
only indirectly serviceable to the gardener. There are other field birds 
deserving the same character, as the pippets and wagtails, which, though 
living entirely on insects, seldom visit gardens. 
Insect-eating birds, which partially eat fruits or seeds. Those 
are principally the common wren, the hedge-sparrow, the red-breast, 
chaffinch, house-sparrow, black-cap, garden-warbler, and the greater 
and lesser white-throats. All these are insectivorous, but they will 
also greedily devour seeds and fruits : of the former, all those of the 
brassicce tribe of plants, and of the latter all those called berries. 
Of similar habits, and in choice of food, may be ranked the 
tomtits, particularly the little blue one (Varus cceruleus). This is a 
prying, impudent, fearless little fellow, capable of subsisting where no 
other bird could find food, inasmuch as nothing comes amiss to him of 
an animal or vegetable nature, that he can peck into -with his small 
black bill, as hard as horn, and as sharp as an awl. With this efficient 
instrument, he speedily breaks up the hard wing-cases of all sorts of 
beetles, and the envelopes of chrysalides and pupae, and will, to get at 
these, dig into the bark of trees like the woodpecker, and also into 
their buds. This, however, so far from being a destructive, is a very 
salutary habit, for the tomtit does not, like the bullfinch, eat the buds 
themselves, but f the worm i’ the bud’ within, discovered by a similar 
instinct to that by which the snipe discovers worms beneath the surface 
of the soil. Were the worm left in the bud, it would destroy it by 
eating out the core, and not only so, but, when arrived at maturity, 
would become the parent of a numerous brood of other worms to destroy 
other buds. Equally beneficial are the services of this bird in dis¬ 
covering and devouring the pupae and chrysalides in crevices and 
chinks of the bark of trees, like the creeper (CertJiia familiar is ), for 
nearly all such found in these situations are from caterpillars, which 
have fed on the leaves, and, of course, would give origin to similar 
caterpillars, were they permitted to undergo their transformations. 
“ The other tits, as, the greater, the cole, and marsh-tits, are all 
chiefly insectivorous, but will also eat farinaceous seeds, as, those of 
