made by Prof. S. A. Forbes, of Illinois, of the stomachs of eighty-six blue birds (Sialia sialis), and his observations and conclusions.* Ten of the birds were shot in February, twenty-one in March, thirteen in April, nine in May, ten in June, nine in July, two in September, and twelve in December, in Southern Illinois. The stomach of a bird shot February 24th, contained thirty per cent. of cut-worms; forty per cent. of crickets; five per cent. of ichneumonidæ; twenty-five per cent. of the larvæ of the two-lined soldier-beetle. After enumerating the contents of the stomachs of all the birds, Prof. Forbes summarizes: "What now shall we say of the economic relations of this bird? According to the estimate of Mr. Walsh that (reasoning from the comparative numbers of injurious and beneficial insects, a bird must be shown to eat at least thirty times as many injurious individuals as beneficial ones, before it can be considered useful), the blue bird does at least twenty times as much harm as good,that is to say, the beneficial insects destroyed would themselves have made away with twenty times as many injurious insects as the birds themselves have eaten. Admitting that Mr. Walsh's estimate was exaggerated, it surely was not twenty times too large, and even if it were, we could merely look upon the blue bird as harmless, indeed, but as useless also. And yet, in the face of this, I venture to doubt that a case has yet been made out.

"In the first place, nothing has been learned of the food of the young, and there is some reason for supposing that birds select for their young, the softer kinds of insects. This supposition, founded chiefly upon the statements of M. Florent-Prevost, of Paris, is contradicted, it is true, by observations of the food of the young mocking-bird, and whatever deficiency of credit may be due to this neglect of the food of the young, is compensated

* From the "American Entomologist," 1880,

in part, at least, by the fact, that the number of caterpillars eaten is doubtless overestimated, in comparison with hard insects, as their flexible skins remain in the stomachs of birds longer than the hard structures of insects. This is exactly contrary to the usual supposition, but the frequent occurrence of numbers of the emptied and twisted skins of cut-worms in the stomach, still recognizable as Noctuide, when not even a fragment of a single head remains, is sufficient evidence that the hard parts break up and disappear before these delicate but yielding skins. Secondly, while our knowledge of the food of arctians, cut-worms, and grasshoppers, is sufficiently definite and full to enable us to predict with certainty exactly what would happen, if those eaten by the blue birds were allowed to live and multiply, we have not the same complete and certain knowledge of the food and habits of the different genera of ichneumonidæ, the ground-beetles, the soldier-bugs and soldier-beetles. One hundred blue birds, at thirty insects each a day, would eat in six months about half a million insects. If this number of birds were destroyed, the result would be the preservation of about one hundred and seventy thousand caterpillars (ninety thousand of them cut-worms), twenty thousand leaf-chafers, ten thousand curculios, and eightyfive thousand crickets, locusts, and grasshoppers.

"How this horde of marauders would busy itself, if left undisturbed, no one can doubt. It would eat grass and clover, and corn and cabbages, inflicting an immense injury itself, and leaving a progeny which would multiply that injury indefinitely. On the other hand, would the two hundred thousand pred aceous beetles and bugs, spiders and ichneumors, either prevent or counterbalance these injuries? I do not believe that we can say positively whether they would or not. In a discussion of the natural checks upon the cut-worm, Prof. Riley, in his First Report as State Entomologist of Missouri, men

tions two species of ichneumon that parasitize the larva, credits the spined soldier-bug and the carabid larva, Calosoma calidum, with its destruction, and says that some kinds of spiders are known to prey upon it. From the Report of the United States Entomological Commission, for 1877, we learn that the grasshopper is preyed upon, at one or the other stage, by Agonoderus, Harpalus, Amara, and other carabids; by soldier-beetles, soldier-bugs, and spiders, and that certain ichneumonidæ parasitize the eggs. It seems probable, therefore, that the beneficial insects eaten by blue birds include the special enemies of the cut-worms and grasshoppers it destroys, but he who knows best the small number of reliable observations upon which our general statements of the food of predaceous insects rest, will have the most hesitation in trusting them without reserve. The probabilities seem to be against the blue bird, but the certainties are, as yet, in its favor. Finally, I would call attention to the fact that we do not know that the normal rate of increase among these carnivorous and parasitic insects is not sufficient to keep their numbers full to the limit of their food supply, and to furnish also a surplus for destruction by birds. Just as a tree puts forth more leaves than it needs, and sets more fruit than it can possibly mature; as an offset to the constant normal depredations of insects, so there is much reason to suppose that our insect friends have become adjusted to this steady drain on their numbers. There are many considerations involved here into which I can not at present enter. It will suffice to say that all the evidence we have of the increase and decrease of carnivorous insects, attendant upon the increase and decrease of the insects upon which they feed, tends to show that the real limit to their multiplication is not destruction by birds, but a deficient food supply, and that in relieving them from their feathered enemies, we should only be giving a por

tion of them the poor privilege of starving to death, instead of being eaten up. Considering, therefore, the certainty of the evil consequences of the destruction of the blue bird, and the uncertainty of the possible good, I believe that, notwithstanding the apparent balance against the species, even the most radical economist, the most indifferent to the beauty and pleasure of the natural world, would have no present justification for throttling the song of the blue bird in his garden, with the hope of increasing thereby his annual store of hay and cabbage."

The following table gives the percentages of the three classes of insects destroyed, and the average for the

Asperge, French; Spargel, German; Aspergie, Dutch; Asperago or Sparagio, Italian; and Esperrago, Spanish.

Asparagus is a native of the sea coasts of Europe, and has long been in cultivation as one of the choicest vegetables of the garden. Peter Henderson says of this vegetable, that the supply has never yet fully satisfied thre demand, and that a small quantity of good asparagus has

frequently helped to sell a wagon load of vegetables, the gardener making its sale conditional upon the purchase of other articles. Asparagus is not only a wholesome article of food, but it is a pleasant diuretic and aperient, and is often used as an alterative or "purifier of the blood." When prescribed medicinally it is, as a decoction, made by boiling two ounces of the root in one quart of water. There are some sixty or seventy species of asparagus, of which the above named is the only edible one. While the shoots of the majority of the asparagus plants are green, some plants produce purple-topped shoots, owing probably to some modification of the leafgreen, or chlorophyll. Such plants cannot be considered even as varieties, as they occur in every planting of whatever kind of asparagus seed, and the peculiarity is not transmitted as a regular distinctive feature.

Difference of opinion exists among horticulturists in regard to the question of varieties of this vegetable, some contending there are no varieties of Asparagus officinalis. They claim that growers, in several localities, have brought the cultivation of asparagus to such a state of perfection, as to have developed a decided superiority in the plant; that, as like produces like, the seed of such plants are preferable and will continue to give a superior product. They hold that, until deteriorated, the Conover's Colossal, the Ulm, the Argenteuil, and others, are only improved strains, while others claim them to be distinct varieties. Unlike the varieties of other vegetables, the different sorts of asparagus are distinguished neither by shape, nor color of leaf or flower, nor by taste, nor by any other character, save size, and when removed from favorable conditions of climate, soil, manure, and management, they deteriorate and are undistinguishable from plants grown from seeds of the poorest kind. Asparagus is a dioecious plant, that is, the male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers are on separate roots.