88 BIRDS or CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



attacking crops. Their habit of caring for and protecting pL^nt-lice 

 is too well known to require extended comment. They take possession 

 also of the empty burrows of wood-boring larvae and extend these 

 galleries still farther into sound timber. They often throw up 

 mounds on lawns and in gardens, where it is almost impossible to ex- 

 terminate them. In houses they frequently are an intolerable nui- 

 sance, infesting the pantry and si:)oiling food. The species that are 

 not offensive in these various ways are mostly of a neutral character 

 in their economic relations, and their destruction by birds does 

 neither good nor harm. 



Hymenoptera, other than ants (mostly wasps), bugs, flies, and 

 grasshoppers, with some spiders, amount altogether to 12 percent of 

 the year's food, and appear very regularly through the season. Grass- 

 hoppers, however, are near being conspicuous by their absence, as re- 

 mains were found in only 4 of the 157 stomachs. This is rather re- 

 markable for a bird whose habits are so terrestrial as those of the 

 thrush. The majority of ground- feeding birds and many arboreal 

 species feed largely upon grasshoppers. In fact, there is no order 

 of insects for which insectivorous birds in general show such a decided 

 preference. The spiders eaten by the thrush belong largely to the 

 order Phalangida, commonly known as ' harvest men ' or ' daddy- 

 long-legs.' 



Vegetable food.^— The vegetable food of the thrush consists prac- 

 tically of fruit either wild or cultivated. A few weed seeds were 

 found in several stomachs, but they amount to only a trace. It is 

 probable that the greatest harm done by this bird is to the cherry 

 crop, though undoubtedly it eats the later fruits to some extent. In 

 May and June the fruit eaten reaches 41 and 38 percent, respectively, 

 and this probably represents the greatest injury which the bird does, 

 as most of the fruit was the pulp and skins of cherries. From June 

 onward seeds of blackberries and raspberries (Rubus) were fre- 

 quently found in stomachs, but as these berries are both wild and-cul- 

 tivated it is impossible to tell how much came from gardens. One 

 stomach taken in early June contained seeds of the twin berry {Loni- 

 cera inoolucrata). Seeds of the elderberry (Sambucus) were abun- 

 dant in stomachs taken in the late summer and fall, and indicate that 

 this fruit constitutes a very considerable portion of the vegetable diet 

 of the thrush at that season. Besides these were seeds of the pepper 

 tree, of Solanum (a weed), and one stomach contained fruit of the 

 coffee berry {Rhamnus calif ortiica) . A few seeds of poison oak were 

 found in two or three stomachs. The greatest amount of fruit was 

 eaten in September, and reaches a total of over 80 percent, but as the 

 number of stomachs is not as great as could be desired the result can 

 scarcely be considered final. Moreover, a large part of this Avas wild 

 fruit. 



