72 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



more than secondary importance, but as cultivation spreads the bird 

 will be forced more and more to reside in cultivated districts. 



The number of stomachs available for examination is 165, and as 

 they represent every month except July they afford a fair idea of the 

 salient features of the bird's yearly food. Of this 52 percent 'm 

 animal matter, insects and spiders, and 48 percent of various vegetable 

 substances. 



Animal food. — The most important item of the animal food con- 

 sists of ants and wasps (Hymenoptera), which amount to 23 percent 

 of the whole. This is in strong contrast to the bush tit, whose diet 

 contains scarcely aiiy of these insects. About half of the Hymenop- 

 tera are ants. This is exactly what might be expected of a bird of 

 such terrestrial habits and one so given to lurking under bushes and 

 about decaved logs and rubbish. The other insects of this order 

 are small wasps. Beetles, collectively, the next most important item 

 of food, amount to about 10 percent. The only useful species iden- 

 tified were a few ladybirds (Coccinellidae), and a separate account of 

 these was kept in order to estimate the harm done by their destruc- 

 tion. The result shows that the diet of the wren tit contains less than 

 1 percent of these useful beetles. The remaining beetles belong to 

 various families, all of them harmful to vegetation. Caterpillars 

 constitute a little less than 8 percent of the food, and are a very con- 

 stant element of the diet. They appear to be eaten at all seasons, but 

 in the earlv summer thev amount to about one-fourth of the food. 

 Quite a number of cocoons of tineid moths also were present in the 

 food. 



Bugs (Hemiptera) are eaten to the extent of about 7 percent of the 

 animal diet. In this respect the wren tit differs from the bush tit, 

 over 44 percent of whose food is made up of these noxious insects. 

 In one particular, however, the two birds are alike; scales (Coccidoe) 

 are prominent in the food of both. The black olive scale {Saissetia 

 olece) and the greedy scale (Aspidiotns rapax) were identified in tlie 

 stomachs of both birds, and many not specifically identified were 

 found. The scales were probably obtained from orchards, as it is 

 not likely that these insects have spread to wild plants and forest 

 trees. As scales are to be had at all seasons they are a constant 

 element of the food of tits. The remaining animal food, less than 

 5 percent, is composed of various insects and some spiders. One 

 stomach contained the legs of a grasshopper and another the remains 

 of a wood-cricket. These are the only orthopterous remains in any 

 stomach. Flies (Diptera) were eaten very sparingly. Spiders aj)- 

 peared in a great many stomachs but not in large numbers. They 

 amount to a little less than 2 percent of the food. In one stomach 

 Avere found 20 mites, commonly parasitic on beetles and other insects. 

 Their hosts had probably been eaten by the tit. 



