. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. SONO- BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 211 The food of these birds has been much discussed, and it has been clearly shown that they eat a larger proportion of fruit and a smaller proportion of insects than most birds. Here in Massachusetts they often merit the name of Cherry Birds, for they descend on the cheiTy trees in considerable flocks, and destroy a large qu
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. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. SONO- BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 211 The food of these birds has been much discussed, and it has been clearly shown that they eat a larger proportion of fruit and a smaller proportion of insects than most birds. Here in Massachusetts they often merit the name of Cherry Birds, for they descend on the cheiTy trees in considerable flocks, and destroy a large quantity of fruit. Professor Beal, however, in examining one.hundred and fifty-two stomachs, found that only nine birds had eaten cultivated cherries, and that more tlian half the food consisted of wild fruit. Mrs. Mary Treat writes of a town in which the elms had been defoliated for several years by the elm-leaf beetle, but the Cedar Birds came, and the trees were afterwards comparatively free from the beetles. During the time when the adult birds feed on cherries, the young are fed very largely upon insects, although fruit is given them as they grow older. These birds feed so much on wild fruit as it ripens, that it con- stitutes nearly seventy-five per cent, of their food; but later, after the young are reared, they turn flycatchers, and taking a high perch on some tree near a lake or river or on the borders of the woods, they sally out after flying insects. Grasshoppers, beetles, crickets, ichneumon flies, crane flies, and lace wings are all devoured by them. Bugs and bark lice are also on the bill of fare. While these birds are sometimes a pest to the fruit grower, they are, on the whole, beneficial to agriculture, and deserve protection.. Fig. 76. — Good work in the orcliard. TANAGERS. This group of brilliant woodland birds is represented here by but two species; one of these, the Summer Tanager, is very rarely seen ; the common Scarlet Tanager is one of the most valuable