130 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



In addition to the above-mentioned items of food, small numbers 

 of millipeds, ticks, lice, aphids, snails, and small crustaceans are some- 

 times included in the diet. There is no evidence in the examination of 

 stomach contents that the wren eats fruit or other farm products, thus 

 placing it high in the group of our beneficial birds. 



The nestlings are fed very frequently and consume enormous quanti- 

 ties of food. Judd (1900) made field observations of a brood of three 

 wrens that were housed in a cavity of a locust tree at Marshall Hall, Md. 

 The nest with its family was transferred to a baking-powder can 

 nailed to a trunk of a tree to facilitate the observations. In the course 

 of 41/2 hours the mother wren made 110 visits, during which she deliv- 

 ered 111 insects and spiders. Among those identified were 1 white grub, 

 1 soldier bug, 3 millers (Noctuidae) , 9 spiders, 9 grasshoppers, 15 may- 

 flies, and 20 caterpillars. On the following day similar observations 

 were made from 9 : 35 a. m. to 12 : 40 p. m., during which time the young 

 were fed 67 times. The food included 4 spiders, 5 grasshoppers, 17 

 mayflies, and 20 caterpillars. 



Jones (1913) observed a pair of wrens feeding their young for a 

 period of 65 hours, during which there were 667 visits to the nest, 560 

 by the male and 107 by the female. "There were 637 [641?] pieces of 

 food brought" — 161 geometrid larvae, 141 leafhoppers. 112 young 

 grasshoppers, 56 bugs, 42 spiders, 29 crickets, 10 moths, 5 ants, 4 miscel- 

 laneous, and 81 pieces unidentifiable ; and 29 visits were made without 

 food. 



McClintock ( 1909 ) observed a wren feeding her nestlings consider- 

 able numbers of blue-bottle flies. Sometimes the flies were stripped of 

 their legs and wings, but oftener they were fed intact. 



Perhaps a record for number of feedings by an individual wren in 

 one day is that of a male bird observed by Clara K. Bayliss (1917) at 

 Macomb, 111. The pair of wrens nested in a bird box nailed to a dis- 

 used poultry house. The female disappeared, probably killed, after 

 the brood of seven was hatched. On June 26, when the young were 

 12 days old, the lone male bird, during a continuous all-day watch 

 from 4:15 a. m., the time of the first feeding, until 8 p. m., when 

 activity ceased, made 1,217 visits to the nest with food. During the 

 hour from 9 : 15 to 10 : 15 a. m. the bird made a record of 111 visits to 

 the nest, or an average of nearly two visits for every minute. 



Similar observations by various other observers confirm the large 

 number of visits made to the nests by the adult birds, indicating that 

 enormous quantities of food are consumed by the young. Indeed the 

 young as well as the adults spend the major part of their daylight 

 hours in the serious business of feeding. 



Stevenson (1933) has shown that the stomachs of the young are 

 consistently larger than those of the adults and has proved the greater 



