INJURIOUS INSECTS EATEN BY THE ROSEBREAST. 45 



the number examined, devoured click-beetles, thus benefiting the 

 farmer considerably. 



Not so many of the birds fed upon long-horned borers, but the re- 

 sulting benefits are less valuable only in degree, as the beetles of this 

 family are often disastrous pests. They are frequently large and 

 strikingly colored, and one of the handsomest, as well as the most 

 injurious kinds, the painted hickory borer {Gyllene pictus) is eaten 

 by the rosebreast. This insect is known as the commonest and most 

 destructive pest of the hickory. Another borer also {Phymatodes 

 varius), which lives in dead wood, and which is sometimes injurious 

 to the tanbark industry in the South, is devoured. 



The rosebreast shows particular fondness for large beetles, a taste 

 readily gratified among the lamellicom or scarabseid beetles. Among 

 these larger species, beetles of the genus Diehelonycha, Avhich feed 

 upon flowers and sometimes are destructive to cultivated plants, were 

 eaten by 9 rosebreasts. Six ate cetoniids 

 (Euphoria fulgida. et al.), which are es- 

 pecially adapted for feeding on flowers, 

 and which also at times turn their atten- 

 tion to fruit and the tassels, silk, and 

 young grains of corn. The beautiful 

 and bulky goldsmith beetle, about three- 

 fourths of an inch long, is captured oc- 

 casionally, and for this service the bird 

 is to be commended, as sometimes the 

 larva? are very destructive to strawber- 



. , . , " , 1 p • Fig. 23. — Seed corn scarabseid 



ries. A white grub or larva of a june- (Aphodius granarius). (From 



bug was the plump morsel obtained by Forbes, Illinois Experiment 



another grosbeak. The ravages of this 



beetle in hiAvns and strawberry plots are well known. The bird 

 feeds also upon another good-sized scarabaeid {Anomcda hinotata), 

 which injures grapes and other plants. 



Among the smaller members of this family the dung beetles, 

 which occur in large numbers, flying near the ground along country 

 roads, are frequently captured by this grosbeak. Most of them are 

 of neutral economic position, but one species {Aphodius granarius^ 

 fig. 23), burrows into sprouting corn. Having this bad habit, the 

 farmer is indebted to the grosbeak for preying upon it. 



Passing to a group of beetles, the weevils, which are an important 

 element of the food of most birds, and Avhich are so uniformly in- 

 jurious that almost any one of them may be deemed a pest, it is grati- 

 fying to note that the rosebreast does its share toward checking 

 them. Moreover, among the kinds it eats is one of the very worst 

 enemies of cultivated fruit in the United States, namely, the j)lum 

 curculio {Conotrachelus nenuphar^ fig. 24), One grosbeak devoured 



