330 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



color. E. Deane (1879) reports an immature catbird collected at 

 Hyde Park, 111., on July 21, 1878, and pure white albino with pink 

 eyes captured alive at Trenton, N. J. K. J. Middleton (1936) 

 trapped a nearl}'^ pure white specimen at Norristown, Pa. The un- 

 derparts of this specimen were grayish white with a tinge of reddish 

 brown on the under tail coverts; the back was gray and the head 

 about the color of the back of normal specimens. Annie T. Slosson 

 (1883) writes of a partial albinistic catbird that she kept in cap- 

 tivity at Hartford. This bird had a band of white across the tail, 

 about an inch from the tip. There was also one white feather in 

 the wing, but otherwise the coloration was normal. The band in 

 the tail was very conspicuous especially when the tail was spread. 



Food: — Unfortunately the food habits of the catbird are not entirely 

 beneficial from the standpoint of the interests of man. Bitter com- 

 plaints of damage, perhaps in some instances greatly exaggerated, 

 have come from the growers of berries and owners of orchards. 



To obtain a true picture of its food habits it is well to examine not 

 only the records of the stomach-content analyses of representative 

 specimens taken over the entire range of distribution but also the 

 numerous field observations that have been made concerning the food 

 of this important and attractive bird. 



Vegetable food : According to Sylvester Judd ( 1895) , who examined 

 the stomach contents of 213 catbirds, only 13 of the birds had eaten 

 strawberries and 20 had taken cherries. However, Judd calls our 

 attention to the fact that though the bird may eat the bulk of only 

 one strawberry or cherry a score may have been pecked, and the injury 

 of a single grape in a bunch detracts from the value of the whole 

 bunch. F. E. L. Beal (1918), reporting on the stomach contents of 

 645 catbirds, states that 56 percent of the food was vegetable; one- 

 third of which consisted of cultivated fruits or those that may be 

 cultivated such as strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. The 

 remainder of the vegetable matter was mostly wild fruit, such as wild 

 cherries, dogwood, sourgum, elderberries, greenbrier, spiceberries, 

 black alder, and sumac. C. C. Purdum (1902) in the examination of 

 192 stomachs found 18 percent of the food to be cultivated fruits, 35 

 percent wild fruits, and 2 percent miscellaneous vegetable matter, 

 making a total of 55 percent, practically the same as the determinations 

 made by Beal. 



That the catbird can subsist on a purely vegetable diet, even under 

 adverse conditions, is shown by the large number of reports of this 

 bird wintering in the north as far as the New England States, a time 

 when no insects are to be found but when an abundance of berries is 

 present in their winter haunts. C. E. Moulton (1921) observed a 

 catbird at frequent intervals at Lynn, Mass., from January 10 until 

 April 6. This individual fed chiefly on the berries of the buckthorn. 



