Late investigations of the food habits of the cowbird indicate that the species is largely beneficial. Prof. Beal showed the food of the cowbird to consist of animal and vegetable matter in the proportion of about twenty-eight per cent. of the latter. Spiders and harmful insects compose almost exclusively the animal food, while weed seeds, waste grain, and a few miscellaneous articles make up the vegetable food. Mr. Silloway thinks "it is not improbable that the so-called insectivorous birds displaced by the cowbird are thus kept in check by this natural agent, and their mission performed by the usurper in directions as helpful as the special functions of the sufferers. We may later come to understand that one cowbird is worth two bobolinks after all."
THE LEGEND OF SAINT SILVERUS.
There runs an old, old legend,
A tale of Christmas time,
Low breathed round the fireside
In distant Northern clime;
It tells how once an angel
Looked down in mercy sweet,