126 TKANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



the State, and in all months, from March to September. Some unex- 

 pected and important generalizations have been made, and the outlines 

 of a number of others begin to appear as we study the mass of facts 

 accumulated. 



The subject, as we shall see, proves to be much more complex than 

 the statements of other observers had given me any reason to expect, and 

 and I have, therefore, found my material insufficient to determine 

 positively many most interesting questions that have unexpectedly arisen. 

 On most points, consequently, I shall reserve a definite judgment until 

 another season, using every opportunity to collect an abundance of 

 specimens. These I can study now much more rapidly than heretofore, 

 and I shall probably be able to settle, in a general way, most doubtful 

 points respecting the food of this family before your next meeting. I 

 intend also this year to commence a similar critical study of the Starling 

 family (the blackbirds, orioles, and their allies) — a family more 

 especially related to agriculture, but also of interest to horticulturists in 

 some of its members. The food of the Blue-bird I shall also study next 

 season with all possible care. I shall further undertake next year to learn 

 all I possibly can of the food of the young of the various common 

 species, transferring the nests to cages in such a way as to invite the 

 continued care of the old birds, and watching their operations with a 

 field-glass. 



This is the proper place to acknowledge my indebtedness to the 

 several persons who in various ways have aided me ; to Mr. C. K. 

 Worthen, of Warsaw, who has sent me the stomachs of birds from that 

 place; to Prof. Riley, of the U. S. Entomological Commission, for the 

 determination of the eggs and larvae of diptera; to Miss Emma A. Smith, 

 of Peoria, to whose services here at the Laboratory I owe most of the 

 slides of insect structures ; but especially and particularly to my assistant, 

 Mr. W. H. Garman, to whose ceaseless industry, careful judgment and 

 thorough and unusually accurate knowledge of the entomology of the 

 State I have been a daily and hourly debtor. 



I. The Robin {Turdus migratorious , L.) 



This bird, as familiar to every one as the domestic cat, is the most 

 abundant of the thrushes, and plays so large a part in the economy of 

 the garden as to make the question of its food one of unusual importance. 

 That a species ranging from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the 

 Mexican plateau to the Arctic circle, apparently at home in all the lati- 

 tudes and longitudes of this vast and varied country, should be at all 

 select in its tastes is not to be expected. The present question for solu- 

 tion is not, what will the robin eat? but, what does he eat here, and in 

 what relative proportions? Not, what would his relations to horticulture 

 be in other places and under more or less hypothetical or exceptional 

 circumstances? but, what are they in Illinois under average conditions? 



I do not profess to be able fully to answer this question. If I sup- 

 posed that the examination of forty-one stomachs of this bird, however 

 skillfully and critically made, could give me a full knowledge of its food 



