No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. 353 



" In a recent investigation of the winter food of the Chickadee, 

 we studied the stomach contents of forty-one specimens taken 

 during November, December, January, February, and March. 

 The results as a whole show that more than half of the food of 

 the Chickadees during winter consists of insects, a very large 

 proportion of which are taken in the form of eggs. About five 

 per cent of the stomach contents consisted of spiders or their 

 e gg s - Vegetation of various sorts made up a little less than a 

 quarter of the food, two-thirds of which, however, consisted of 

 buds and bud-scales that were believed to have been accidentally 

 introduced with plant-lice eggs. These eggs made up more than 

 one-fifth of the entire food and formed the most remarkable 

 element of the bill of fare. This destruction of the myriads of 

 eggs of plant-lice which infest the fruit, shade, and forest trees, 

 is probably the most important service the Chickadee renders 

 during its winter residence. More than four hundred and fifty 

 eggs sometimes occur as the food of one bird in a single day. 

 On the supposition that one hundred were eaten daily by each 

 of a flock of ten Chickadees, there would be destroyed one thou- 

 sand a day, or one hundred thousand during the days of winter 

 — a number which we believe to be far below the actual average, 

 could we determine it precisely. Insects' eggs of many other 

 kinds were found in the food of the Chickadee; many of these 

 it was impossible to recognize, but there was no difficulty in 

 identifying the eggs of the common American tent caterpillar 

 and of the fall cankerworm, the eggs of which remain upon 

 the trees through the winter. There were also present the eggs 

 and egg sacs of many spiders of kinds commonly occurring under 

 loose bark. While spiders as a class are doubtless beneficial 

 creatures, the destruction of some of them is not in our opinion 

 seriously detrimental to the usefulness of the Chickadee. The 

 larvae of several different kinds of moths were also found. One 

 of the most abundant species was believed to be the common apple 

 worm, the larva of the codling moth. The bark beetles of the 

 family Scolytidse, which are destructive to forests all over our 

 country, were also freely eaten by the Chickadees. The hairy 

 skins of the fruit of the common wild sumachs were among the 

 most abundant elements of the vegetable food present. The 

 edible portion of these fruits is evidently eaten to a considerable 

 23 



