EASTERN NIGHTHAWK 225 



the total food eaten by the birds. In 24 of the stomachs the number 

 of ants ranged from 200 to 1,800, and in all the stomachs examined 

 there were not less than 20,000 ants (Beal, 1897). In the stomach 

 of a nightha\Yk that met with accidental death at Brnnswick, Maine, 

 on August 20, 1925, there were 2,175 ants. The mass and weight 

 of these insects were so great that they constituted a serious handi- 

 cap and probably a factor in the bird's untimely ending. Charles 

 Drury (1887) obtained a specimen in August that contained 320 in- 

 sects, chiefly winged ants. W. L. McAtee (1926) found more than 

 one hundred carpenter ants {Caviponotus herculeanus) in one 

 nighthawk stomach. In most all instances the ants captured are 

 the mating winged individuals, which fly in immense swarms during 

 the late summer. These ants are killed at a time when they are 

 preparing to propagate their kind, and hence the death of every 

 female means the destruction of thousands of the next generation. 



According to examinations of the United States Biological Sur- 

 vey (Beal, McAtee, and Kalmbach, 1916) beetles comprised one-fifth 

 of the food eaten by 87 nighthawks examined. May beetles, dung 

 beetles, and others of the leaf-chafer family were in greatest num- 

 bers. Beal (1897) reported finding the remains of 34 May beetles 

 {PhyJlophaga) in a single nighthawk stomach, in another 23, and 

 in a third 17. In the stomach contents of one specimen no less than 

 17 species of beetles were identified. Chester Lamb (1912) reports 

 that all nighthawks collected by him had eaten enormous quantities 

 of beetles. Thomas G. Grentry (1877) reports eight species of 

 beetles in food examined by him. McAtee (1926) reports various 

 leaf chafers, sawyers, wood borers, bark beetles, weevils, and plant 

 lice in the food eaten by nighthawks in the course of his study of 

 the relation of birds to woodlots in New York State. In the exam- 

 ination of hundreds of droppings of nighthawks obtained from 

 various nesting sites chiefly at Brunswick, Maine, a large percentage 

 of the identifiable remains consisted of parts of various species of 

 beetles. 



Nighthawks, especially in the Middle West, have been known to 

 eat a considerable number of grasshoppers and locusts. According 

 to Ernest Harold Baynes (1915) seven Nebraska specimens were 

 found to have eaten 348 Rocky Mountain locusts; five specimens 

 collected in Indiana reported by A. W. Butler (1898) had eaten 9 

 grasshoppers, 19 beetles, 23 Heteroptera, and 4 Neuroptera. B. H. 

 Warren (1890) reported that grasshoppers were an important 

 element of the food eaten by nighthawks collected in Pennsylvania. 

 F. E. L. Beal (1897) states that one nighthawk contained the remains 

 of 60 grasshoppers. A male killed on July 7, 1882, was reported 

 by Everett Smith (1883) to have "an ichneumon fly, a black cricket, 



178223—40 21 



