92 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part i 



59% of the total food of the birds. He found in these stomachs, also, 

 remains of other caterpillars, leaf chafers, weevils, click beetles, and 

 bugs." McAtee also lists as food one of the locust borers (Agrilus 

 egenus), grasshoppers, plant lice, and cicadas. He says, further, that 

 "the bird feeds to some extent also upon grain, as oats, and upon buds, 

 but seems rarely to do notable damage." In another report W. E. 

 Clyde Todd (1940) states: "According to E. H. Forbush, it consumes 

 large quantities of objectionable insects, such as grasshoppers, cater- 

 pillars, measuring worms, and beetles; it also eats seeds, many of 

 which are those of weeds. Examination of stomach contents of a few 

 birds collected in an orchard infested with cankerworms, revealed 

 that 78 percent of the total food consisted of this pest." In Alabama 

 (Imhof, 1962) and North Carolina (Pearson, Brimley and Brimley, 

 1959) the species consumes a variety of weed seeds, berries, other 

 fruits, caterpillars, grasshoppers, beetles, and bugs. 



A. W. Butler (1898), commenting on the abundance of the species 

 and its occurrence around farms and even small fruit gardens, says, 

 "it is desirable that they receive the fullest protection, for at any 

 time they may prove of untold value in assisting to hold in check 

 some threated outbreak of injurious insects." As other foods he also 

 mentions raspberries and elderberries. 



T. S. Roberts (1932) lists plant lice, flies, and mosquitoes as food, 

 and H. C. Oberholser (1938) records curculios. O. W. Knight (1908) 

 includes vegetable matter such as seeds of the goldenrod, aster, 

 thistle, and other composites, as well as grass and weed seeds. E. H. 

 Forbush (1929) says, "In late summer when the corn has 'tasseled 

 out,' the Indigo Buntings seem to find some food about the corn tops 

 and often may be found in cornfields." Witmer Stone (1937) ob- 

 served a bird eating dandehon seeds on a lawn in early May. Mabel 

 Osgood Wright (1907) says, "The last of May, one of these Buntings 

 came to a low bush, outside my window, and after resting awhile, 

 for the night before had been stormy, dropped to the closely cut 

 turf to feed upon the crumbs left where the hounds had been munching 

 their biscuits." 



E. W. Jameson, Jr. (1942) watched migrating flocks from Aug. 

 20 until Sept. 22, 1942 along the sand dunes and rocky shores of 

 northeast Lake Erie where turkey bluejoint (Andropogon Jurcatus) 

 grows abundantly. He says, "The birds perched just below the 

 racemes on the two-meter culms, bending them half way to the 

 ground, and then ate the grains on that culm or on an adjacent 

 shorter one. The grains had not yet fallen at this time, and I did not 

 see the buntings feeding on the ground or using any other plant for 

 food. At 9 A.M. on September 17, seventeen buntings were feeding 

 in this manner within an area of about one acre; some were perched in 



