2H0 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ground, click, dung and May-beetles (three per cent). The eight 

 per cent remaining is composed of leaf-hoppers, true bugs, ants, 

 spiders and parasitic wasps, the latter (which are useful insects) 

 together with the useful predaceous insects aggregating only 

 one per cent of the food. In the month of June, ninety-three 

 per cent of that month's food is insects, of which grasshoppers 

 form thirty-six per cent, caterpillars twenty-five per cent and 

 leaf-beetles six per cent. Weevils form sixteen per cent of the 

 food eaten in May. 



As to the vegetable element only four per cent is grain, and 

 that mostly oats. The remaining fifty-eight per cent is seed, 

 of which forty-eight per cent is grass seed and ten per cent 

 other seeds, including clover, ragweed, amaranth, wood sorrel, 

 lamb's quarters, purslane, chickweed, knotweed and black bind- 

 weed. Of the grass seed twenty-six per cent is crab-grass and 

 pigeon-grass, chiefly crab-grass, the remaining twenty-two per 

 cent other grasses, including timothy and orchard grass. 



The Chipping Sparrow has been seen taking cultivated cher- 

 ries and sipping grapevine sap but the instances of such oc- 

 curences are few, and furthermore are completely overshadowed 

 by the observations on its caterpillar eating propensities. It 

 has been seen devouring caterpillars of the brown-tail moth and 

 Sypsy moth in the east, and also eating tent caterpillars, canker 

 worms and army worms. Mr. C. M. Weed (Bull. 55, New 

 Hampshire Coll, Exp. Sta.) watched a pair with three young 

 birds from the time they commenced to feed the young in the 

 morning at 3:57 until 7:50 in the evening when the day's work 

 was over. During this day the birds made nearly two-hundred 

 visits to the nest bringing food nearly every time; among the 

 insects observed fifty were caterpillars, and there were many 

 crickets and crane-flies. It has also been found to feed upon 

 the pea louse, which is becoming very destructive in some 

 localities. 



There is no doubt but that the Chipping Sparrow is an ex- 

 ceedingly valuable little bird and one that should be encouraged 

 in its domesticity by rigidly protecting it. 



THE PHOEBE. 

 ( Sa yorn is phoe be.) 



This abundant plaincolored Flycatcher is the one that builds 



