PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGY. 



441 



THE ROBIii—(,Turctus migi-alorius). 



Probably tlie economic status of this species has been more generally dis- 

 cussed than that of any other bird. Many horticulturists believe that the 

 species is more injurious than beneficial; that the berries and clierries eaten 

 are far from compensated for by the insects devoured. It has been very gen- 

 erally thought that earthworms form by far the largest proportion of the food 

 of the young. 



The stomach of one adult robin, which was the only fully developed speci- 

 men which I examined, contained so striking an instance of the beneficial 

 influence of the bird, that I notice it here, although not coming properly 

 under the subject of the food of young birds. The stomach was almost 

 wholly filled with the injurious larvse of the family Anthomyiidm. This is the 

 family to which belong the notorious cabbage and radish flies, which in many 

 places have stopped cabbage production, with a consequent loss of thousands 

 of dollars annually. By actual count there were sixty of these anthomyian 

 larva? in the single stomach. 



The bird was shot between a row of cherry trees and a raspberry patch, 

 both in bearing, and but a few rods apart. Yet many a horticulturist asserts 

 that in the berry and cherry seasons the robin eats no insect food. 



TURDUS MIGRATORIUS. -iJoftin. 



These results show that the young robin eats many more injurious Lepidop- 

 terous larvse and fewer earth worms than has generally been supposed ; that 

 grass blades are almost always present, although probably introduced largely 

 by accident with the other elements of the food ; that the predaceous beetles 



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