STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



123 



most misleading non sequitur, as a little study of the tables of food here 

 given will prove. The caterpillar in a bird's stomach counts, by this 

 method, as much as fifty in the final conclusion. A single leaf-eater taken 

 by one bird will balance fifty lady-bugs eaten by another. 



The personal character of my criticism disappears when I confess that 

 I have hitherto followed this method myself, supposing any other impracti- 

 cable. I have found, however, that a little practice enables one to estimate 

 with a good degree of accuracy the percentages of each kind of food found 

 in each bird's stomach. If this were not so I should be inclined to give 

 up the whole problem as insoluble, as nothing but the most general and 

 uncertain notions of the economical relations of birds could otherwise be 

 obtained. Most frequently those writing upon this subject have jumped 

 to the conclusion that all itisects were injurious, and that their presence 

 in a bird's food was sufficient evidence that the bird should be preserved. 

 The conclusion reached in this paper will show the falsity of this opinion. 

 Perhaps I shall account for this defect of our knowledge when I say that 

 this is almost purely an entomological guestiofi, and that it has been thus 

 far studied almost wholly by ornithologists only. It is not necessary, 

 therefore, to suspect them of an unconscious bias in favor of the objects 

 of their study to account for the apparent partiality of their judgments or 

 the partisan fervor with which they frequently urge opinions whose foun- 

 dations certainly will not bear scrutiny. 



In computing these ratios I have carefully reviewed all the material 

 previously studied, using the opportunity, of course, to test my former 

 notes and to add the many details which longer practice has enabled me 

 to detect. In preparing these notes, and in summing them up for this 

 report, I have felt compelled to give the fullest particulars possible, and 

 to describe the methods used and the principles on which these are based, 

 so far as they have not been already given in previous papers. 



It is a simple thing to satisfy myself on this subject — not very 

 difficult, perhaps, to convince you that the work has been done carefully 

 and in good faith. But if it is to have any real utility, it must carry with 

 it evidence of its accuracy and honesty sufficient to satisfy the general 

 public, and especially sufficient to commend it to the confidence of 

 experts, whose decision will finally determine its repute, and consequently 

 settle the question of its practical worth. If I have given you a good deal 

 of dry detail, this must be my excuse. This paper was intended to 

 embody not only results and opinions, but all the proof upon which they 

 rest ; to supply, in truth, the whole body of fact thus far arrived at, so 

 that those indisposed to agree with me can, at least, have the material 

 for conclusions of their own. Every detail of the food of the Thrushes 

 which I have personally noted is contained in the tables which follow this 

 paper. The contents of every stomach examined have been separately 

 bottled in alcohol, labeled and systematically arranged, so that the tangi- 

 ble basis of every statement can at any time be found. 



I must briefly allude to some of the difficulties encountered, and to 

 some of the methods used to avoid or surmount them. Of course, the 

 greatest difficulty lay in the fragmentary character of the material to be 



