306 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



have been noted by anyone who has watched the bird much, or indeed, 

 even casually. Six stomachs contained nine specimens of the cotton- 

 boll weevil. Ants form 4.48 percent of the animal food and were found 

 in 75 stomachs, another ground-feeding proof. Bees and wasps com- 

 posed 3 percent. Though only two stomachs contained that notorious 

 pest the chinch bug, Professor Beal says that "any bird which eats this 

 pest deserves honorable mention." Grasshoppers composed 14.85 per- 

 cent of all animal food and are eaten every month in the year. Cater- 

 pillars were a monthly diet except for October and made up 9.48 per- 

 cent. Among "a ho.st of others" appeared the cotton-leaf wc)rm, 

 spiders, crawfish, sowbugs, and snails. Peculiar items were a few 

 lizards (3) and a small snake. 



In the vegetable line wild fruit is the item. It is eaten every month 

 and totals 42.58 percent, more than four-fifths of all vegetable matter. 

 Maximum consumption occurs in October, amounting to 76.91 percent. 

 Wild fruit was found in 246 stomachs, and 76 contained nothing else. 

 Thirty-five species were identified, and among the most frequently 

 eaten were various kinds of holly, smilax, woodbine, blackberry, poke- 

 berry, elderberry, mulberry, and sourgum. Domestic fruit comprised 

 only 3.35 percent, the bulk of it being either raspberries or blackberries. 

 Sinpe both of these grow wild in abundance, the berries eaten by 

 mockers "are as apt to be taken from thickets and briar patches as from 

 gardens." Figs were found occasionally. A few grapes, which might 

 have been wild species, were identified. As long as wild fruits are 

 available the mocker will probably never do much harm to cultivated 

 varieties. Certainly, the above would indicate that the mocker is not 

 a heavy consumer of domestic fruit, as was thought by many. Pro- 

 fessor Beal sums up his account by the statement that "there appears 

 to be nothing to prove that the Mockingbird eats domestic fruit to an 

 injurious extent." 



A. H. Howell (1932) gives some interesting information in regard to 

 the mocker's diet in Florida. He adds to the berry list above the 

 sumac, poison ivy, Virginia-creeper, red cedar, black alder, and bay- 

 berry, by which last is probably meant the waxmyrtle, as it is abundant 

 in the Southeast and the bayberry is not. He quotes C. J. Maynard 

 (1896), as saying that at Key West mockers eat the fruit of the 

 pricklypear cactus (Opuntia) extensively in fall and winter. H. H. 

 Bailey (1925) says that the fruit of the wild fig and seagrape 

 (Coccolobis) are eaten. He was told by the late Charles Torrey 

 Simpson that mockers at Lemon City (near Miami) consume the 

 berries of a nightshade {Solanum seaforthianum) and become in- 

 toxicated therefrom. D. J. Nicholson found the birds feeding on 

 berries of the waxmyrtle {Myrica cerifera) and French mulberry 

 {Callicarpa) as well as those of the cabbage palm {Sabal palmetto). 

 This last is a frequent food item on the South Carolina coast, where the 



