060 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



of the food of the species. A few cutworms and many other caterpillars 

 brought the lepidoptera up to one-fourth of the food and there was 14 

 percent of ants, while about one-half the food consisted of beetles. Three 

 Catbirds taken in a canker-worm orchard in Tazewell county, Illinois, 

 and reported on by Forbes had not eaten canker-worms at all. Their 

 preference for ants was clearly shown, these forming 17 percent of their 

 food, predaceous beetles 16 percent, scavenger beetles and thousandlegs 

 each 5 percent, and undetermined caterpillars made more than one-fourth 

 of the food, while a cutworm or two were distinguished. Twenty percent 

 was vine chafers {Anomala) and 5 percent consisted of the common spring 

 beetle (Melanotus) (Trans. 111. State Hort. Soc. Vol. 15, 1881, p. 124). 



In another report on the food of this bird (Ibid, Vol. 14, pp. 112-113), 

 Prof. Forbes says "The ratios of insects for the five months May to Septem- 

 ber were 83, 49, 18, 46 and 21. Chinch-bugs were found in the food of 

 one bird only. Orthoptera seemed to be most abundant in the late and 

 early months, diminishing in June and July. Raspberries and black- 

 berries are the most prominent elements of June, July and August. Wild 

 cherries take the place of these fruits in September, and grapes are then 

 eaten to some extent. The credit I have given it must be still further 

 reduced because of its serious depredations on the apple orchards. I have 

 often seen it busily scooping out the fairest side of the ripest, earliest apples, 

 unsurpassed in skill and industry in this employment by the Red-headed 

 Woodpecker or Blue Jay." The Catbird has often been named as a foe 

 to the chinch-bug, but Prof. Forbes says "Among the birds shot in 1880 

 during midsummer, when the chinch-bug was abundant enough in central 

 IlUnois to cause some alarm, the Catbird was found to have eaten these 

 insects in barely sufficient numbers to show that it has no unconquerable 

 prejudice against them" (Ibid, p. 130). Prof. Aughey, of Nebraska, found 

 that the Catbird fed regularly upon the Rocky Mountain locust, birds 

 taken in June of four different years showing from 20 to 40 locusts in each 

 stomach. 



The most exhaustive study of the Catbird's food 5'et made was-that 

 carried out by the late Dr. Sylvester Judd, of the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, who in 1895 reported upon the food of the Catbird as shown 

 by the examination of 213 stomachs, and various field studies. His 

 conclusions show that beetles and ants form the most important part 

 of the animal food of the Catbird, though smooth caterpillars play no 

 insignificant part. Crickets and grasshoppers come next in importance, 

 and constant but less important parts of the fare are thousandlegs, centi- 

 pedes, spiders and bugs. It subsists largely upon fruit, of which one-third 

 is taken from cultivated crops. The value of its insect-eating is much 

 lessened by the fact that it eats many predaceous ground-beetles, but 

 on the other hand it eats some of the strong-scented leaf-eating beetles 

 which are decidedly harmful (Yearbook, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1895, 

 406-411). 



Experiments with caged Catbirds gave some interesting results. "After 

 several unsuccessful attempts one Catbird was induced to eat a honey bee. 

 Small slugs, though eaten by one bird, seemed to be regarded as unsavory. 

 Weevils and bad-smelling Ijugs were eaten with relish, as were also sow- 

 bugs. Plant-lice were refused, though ants which attended them were 

 greedily devoured. Maggots were eaten, and a hideous black spider was 

 torn to pieces by all four Catbirds and then eaten with relish" (Ibid, 



