Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/562

530 complaints have reached the Department of the mischief wrought by them in grain and potato fields. Other farmers, and in places where Pheasants are most numerous, do not complain, some of them even speaking favourably of them.

Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1896, has also been received. As in Canada, bounties are paid for the destruction of noxious animals, and during the last twenty-five years 3,000,000 dollars have been thus expended. In some regions the losses on account of Wolves and Coyotes are so serious as to threaten the success of the Sheep industry. It was estimated in 1892 that in New Mexico, where the Sheep were valued at 4,556,000 dollars, such losses varied from 3 to 7 per cent.; in Nebraska the value of Sheep was about 2,000,000 dollars, while the losses amounted to 5 per cent., or 100,000 dollars; and sheepowners in Central Texas suffered losses on account of wild animals to the extent of 10 to 25 per cent. The larger animals are gradually becoming rare, particularly in the East; but it cannot be said that bounties have brought about the extermination of a single species in any State. Wolves are now almost extinct east of the Mississippi river, except in Florida and a few other States; but their present rarity is due rather to the settlement of the country than to the number killed for rewards.

Mr. F.E.L. Beal has studied the habits and food of the Blue Jay, Cyanocitta cristata, which seems to have hitherto enjoyed a somewhat undeserved bad character. The accusations of eating eggs and young birds are certainly not sustained, while in destroying insects the Jay undoubtedly does much good. "The Blue Jay gathers its fruit from nature's orchard and vineyard, not from man's; corn is the only vegetable food for which the farmer suffers any loss, and here the damage is small. In fact the examination of nearly 300 stomachs shows that the Blue Jay does far more good than harm."

Asparagus was introduced into America with the early settlers from Europe, and is credited with having been cultivated there for two hundred years before being troubled with insects. Now two beetles destroy the crop, both introduced from Europe—Crioceris asparagi, which arrived about 1856, and C. duodecimpunctata, whose presence was detected in 1881. Fortunately they have found enemies in the land of their adoption. C. asparagi receives the attention of the spotted ladybird, Megilla maculata, whose larvæ appear "to have no other occupation than that of devouring those of asparagus beetles." Two Hemipterons, Podisus spinosus and Stiretrus anchorago, also destroy the larval pests, and some species of wasps and small dragonflies do a similar service. Mr. F.H. Chittenden has contributed the memoir on this subject.