\ WESTERN ROBIN 59 



had in three years, robins were feeding on the vine. Each would fly- 

 to a seed pod, hover over it, like a hummingbird, peck until the seeds 

 began to run, and then flutter below to pick the fallen seeds from the 

 snow. No bird that I observed hovered in midair for more than 4 

 seconds. One bird performed the same feat in pecking something 

 from an English ivy growing on the house wall." 



Mr. Mailliard (1930) found seeds of the English ivy in the nest he 

 was watching and others have reported them as eaten by the robin. 

 Other berries reported by others are blueberries, elderberries, coffee 

 berries, mistletoe berries, manzanita berries and the berries of the 

 peppertree, and chokecherries. Though the eastern robins eat a few 

 seeds of the poison-ivy, and thus help to spread that noxious vine, 

 Professor Beal (1915a) says that the seeds of the California poison-oak 

 (Rhus diversiloba) were not found in the stomachs of west-coast robins, 

 which is much to then credit; this is rather remarkable, as the poison- 

 oak is one of the most abundant shrubs in California and as the robins 

 feed freely on other species of Rhus. 



Professor Beal (1907) says that from November onward the bulk of 

 the vegetable food was cultivated fruit, "grapes in 5 stomachs, figs 

 in 3, prunes in 2, pear, apple, and black berries in 1 each." These 

 were, at that season, waste fruit that had not been gathered. He then 

 goes on to say: "From the foregoing the robin would not appear to do 

 much damage, or at least not more than is amply paid for by the 

 insects it destroys. But, unfortunately, more is to be said about its 

 food habits, which does not redound so much to its credit. In certain 

 years when their customary food is scarce, robins appear in the valleys 

 in immense numbers, and wherever there are olives they eat them so 

 eagerly and persistently that the loss is often serious and occasionally 

 disastrous. Sometimes, indeed, it is only by the most strenuous 

 efforts, with considerable outlay of labor and money, that any part 

 of the crop can be saved. Fortunately, such extensive damage is not 

 done every year, although here and there the olive crop may suffer." 

 In some cases it was necessary to employ men with shotguns and keep 

 them constantly firing, in order to save more than 50 percent of the 

 olives. Some of the birds shot had as many as six olives in the crop. 



Howard L. Cogswell tells me that early in spring the robins "take 

 toll from the many red decorative berry bushes (Pyracantha, Coto- 

 neaster, Eugenia, etc.), which, however, remain practically untouched 

 as long as the camphor berries last." 



Behavior. — There does not seem to be anything in the behavior of 

 the western robin that is peculiar to this subspecies. Mr. Kathbun 

 tells me that he has, on numerous occasions, tested the speed of this 

 robin in ordinary undisturbed flight, and found it to vary from 25 

 to 28 miles an hour; once a test showed 30. 



