BIRDS AS THE FRIENDS OF PLANTS
I
“Just listen, Mary Frances!” said Billy, pulling a paper out of his pocket.
“‘One robin has been known to feed his family five yards of worms a day.
“‘A chickadee will dispose of 5,500 eggs of the canker-worm moth in one day.
“‘A flicker eats no less than 9,000 ants a day.
“‘A pair of wrens have been seen to carry one hundred insects to their young in an hour. They are especially fond of plant-lice and cutworms.
“‘Little humming-birds lick plant-lice off foliage with lightning rapidity.
“‘The yellow-billed cuckoo eats hundreds of tent caterpillars in a day.
“‘Seed-eating birds destroy millions of seeds of troublesome weeds—actually eating hundreds of tons of seeds.’