By S. A. Forbes. In the "Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, December, 1882, is a scientific paper of great practical utility in regard to the influence of birds in keeping down the canker-worm. The paper is so full of important details that it is impossible to give a brief abstract of it, and those who are able to get it will do well to read the whole. The facts have a great bearing on many practical questions besides the one which Mr. Forbes proposed for solution. The point we have often made, that there is really a very narrow line between insectivorous and frugivorous birds, is clearly brought out here.

Birds will not starve. When they cannot get vegetable food they take to animal, and the reverse under other circumstances. Mr. Forbes shot his birds on the 24th of May, 1881, and 20th of May, 1882, and the contents of the craw showed that all the birds fed on animal food. At that early season there are few seeds to be had. Some birds had seeds of asters and other Compositae, bristle grass (Setaria, which by the way has the name of pigeon grass in this paper), and seeds of a few other plants which perhaps were kept from distribution under the snow. Birds like the woodpecker seem to have no compunction about stealing the farmer's new-sown corn in a pinch; and such kinds as the yellow bird, riot on insect food.

An interesting item in this experience is that different birds seem to prefer different kinds of insects, but on analysis this is found not so much a matter of gastronomies as of strength or peculiar habits of the bird. The robin for instance was found to use cut-worms and other terrestrial creatures, to an enormous extent. The canker worm, which abounded in the orchard, was barely touched. The yellow bird had two-thirds of the total amount eaten of canker worms. We can see that the superior strength of the robin, and its habit of being frequently on the ground, give it advantages for searching for earth-loving creatures which the yellow-bird does not possess.

As to the leading question proposed, the influence on keeping down the canker-worm, the great question remains in how far does the enormous number eaten by the birds, aid the fruit grower? It is evidently the design of nature that a very large proportion of that which is created shall serve as food for the others, and that after all this has been accomplished, there shall still be enough left to reproduce the species. The forty-five acres of apple-trees of Mr. J. W. Robinson, in Tazewell County, Illinois, wherein these birds were caught, has been infested by canker worms for six years to such an extent that the orchard looks annually as if fired.

Under the pressure of little other food, even graminivorous birds have been compelled to feed on canker worms. Millions must have been annually destroyed, but still the annnal destruction to the leaves of the trees goes on.

To our mind the law is that man must be his own great protector. In the war against insects retail efforts are of little avail. He must either guard his trees so that insect enemies cannot get at them, or wholesale destruction be completely at command.

Horticultural Directory for 1883, twentyfourth edition. Published at the Journal of Horticulture office, London, England. This gives a complete list of the nurserymen, seedsmen, florists, gentlemen and ladies who have fine gardens, and their gardeners, of England and the " Continent," which seems to include the United States, Japan and the rest of the world outside of the British Isles. As an illustration of how words change in time in different parts of the world, we note that the districts here are divided into "London, Metropolitan and Country." In this part of the world metropolis is the chief city of a country, and London would be regarded as the metropolis of England, and metropolitan that which related to the city. But in England, as we judge from the Directory, metropolitan is applied to the towns and cities for some thirty miles or so surrounding the city, or distinct from the city itself.