ich have been made by the tent caterpillars. An invading host
seems to have pitched its tents among the boughs on all sides. If
undisturbed these caterpillars strip the foliage from the trees.
Fortunately there is a bird which is very fond of these hairy
intruders. This is the Cuckoo, and he eats so many that his stomach
actually becomes lined with a thick coating of hairs from their woolly
bodies. The Baltimore Oriole also is fond of rifling these webs.

Another well-known bird that helps to make this part of the world
habitable is the Flicker. It is popular in every neighbourhood where
it is found and is known by a wide variety of local names, over one
hundred and twenty-five of which have been recorded. Golden-winged
Woodpecker some people call it. Other names are High-holder, Wake-up,
{108} Walk-up, Yellowhammer, and Pigeon Woodpecker. The people of Cape
Hatteras know it as Wilkrissen, and in some parts of Florida it is the
Yucker-bird. Naturalists call it _Colaptes auratus_, but name it as
you may, this bird of many aliases is well worthy of the esteem in
which it is held. It gathers its food almost entirely from the ground,
being different in this respect from other Woodpeckers. One may flush
it in the grove, the forest, the peanut field, or the untilled prairie,
and everywhere it is found engaged in the most highly satisfactory
occupation of destroying insect life. More than half of its food
consists of ants. In this country, taken as a whole, Flickers are very
numerous, and the millions of individual birds which have yet escaped
the guns of degenerate pot hunters constitute a mighty army of
destruction to the _Formicidae_.

Let us not forget that any creature which eats ants is a decided boon
to humanity. Ants, besides being wood borers, invaders of pantries,
killers of young birds, nuisances to campers and barefoot {109} boys,
care for and perpetuate plant lice which infest vegetation in all parts
of the country to our very serious loss. Professor Forbes, in his
study of the corn plant louse, found that in spring ants mine along the
principal roots of the corn. Then they collect the plant lice, or
aphids, and convey them into these burrows and there watch and protect
them. Without the assistance of ants, it appears that the plant lice
would be unable to reach the roots of the corn. In return for these
attentions the ants feast upon the honey-like substances secreted by
these aphids. The ants