The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1912-08-02
EBB AND FLOW OF WILD LIFE.

fairs of our wild neighbors no les
than in the affairs of men-vicissi
tudes of fortune that affect not mere
ly individuals but whole tribes ans
races as well.
l noticed one recent season in wild
ely different parts of the countr,
that the goldfinches did not breet
as freely as they usually do. No
one nest could l find in the orchards
or bushy fields of the home farm
where the season before found &
half dozen. What was the matter.
The old birds were there and the
thistles bloomed as usual, but nc
nests could be found, and only two
young birds were seen or heard in
August and September, where l used
to see and hear scores ofthem. What
caused this ebb in the tide of gold.
finch life? Some other season. may
bring the food, as it has in the case
of our pretty little rodent, the chip
munk. For twenty years or more the
chipmunks have been slowly disap-
pearing from all parts of the country
with which l was familiar, hardly
one of late years where there used
to be ten when I was a boy. But
suddenly, two years ago, they be.
gan to be noticeable, and now they
are here in something like their old
time numbers. l hear OF them from
different parts of the state. The re-
suit of migration I was at first in
clined to think, till Mr.. John Lewis
Childs of Floral Park told me they
had suddenly become very numerous
on Long Island. This fact seems to
exclude the idea of migration from
some other part of the country,
Some parasites, some plague-chip-
munk smallpox, or cholera, or vel
low fever-may have kept their num-
bers down for years, when suddenly
the enemy vanishes, and the race re-
covers its lost ground.
The Destroyers of the DESTROYED.
These vicissitudes, these GIBBS and
flows, probably run all through the
life of nature about us and we OBJ
serve them not. I know an ash tree
by the roadside that year after year.
early in the season, lost part of it's
Foliage by some form of leaf blight.
Surely, I thought, that tree is DOOM
ed. Then there came season when
the blight did not appear and it has
not appeared since. A few years ago
The elm beetle threatened to DESTROY
all our elms on the Hudson; then it
net with a check and seems now to
lave gone out entirely. A species of
crest worm denuded the sugar map
es in a large section of Delware
county, and spread like fire from one
wood to another, and grew more and /
more devasting; then a parasite.
pecies of ichneumon fly, took
land in the game, and in one sea-
on the tide ebbed, and has never re-
urned. A year or two later another
pecies of forest worm appeared in
he same section of the country and
tripped the beeches; in midsummer
he woods were full of white moths
or two seasons; then something hap !,
ened and the worms have not re-
lrned. Occasionally favorite COM
nation of weather and seasonal con-
itions fills some parts of the country
nth a plague of grasshoppers, and
he farmers tremble for their next
eason crops, but the next season may
rove quite grasshopperless.
The tide in the affairs of some of
ur tree and fruit pests, such as the
ypsy and brown-tailed moths and the
an Jose scale, seems yet at its full,
ut no doubt the ebb will come before
le case is hopeless.
Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, every- !
here in the life of nature. When I |
we'd upon the Potomac forty years ,
go, the black-throated bunting, or !,
fckcissel, was common bird in the {
elds. Some years later these birds {
cyan to disappear slowly, and now t
lat part of the country is said to
destitute of them, while they are
'mmon farther south in Kentucky
Id Tennessee. What caused the dis
'pearance or migration of these bird
no knows? OF late years the par :
e-horned lark has appeared upon