EASTERN HERMIT THRUSH 153 



the year, though all the birds taken in winter were collected from the 

 Southern States, the District of Columbia, and California. 



Animal matter, consisting chiefly of insects and a few spiders, com- 

 prises 64.51 percent of the total amount of the food eaten by the her- 

 mit thrush. The insects consisted of beetles h 5. 3?percent, ants 12.46 

 percent, bees and wasps 5.41 percent, caterpillars 9.54 percent, Hemip- 

 tera (bugs) 3.63 percent, Diptera (flies) 3.02 percent, grasshoppers 

 and crickets 6.32 percent, miscellaneous insects 0.27 percent, and 

 spiders and myriapods 7.47 percent. Miscellaneous animals such as 

 sowbugs, snails, and angleworms make up the balance of the animal 

 food of 1.26 percent. Of the insects listed above less than 3 percent 

 can be considered useful; the remainder according to Professor Beal 

 are chiefly harmful to man's interest. 



The vegetable diet of the hermit thrush (35.49 percent) consists 

 largely of fruit, but little of this can be classed as cultivated. Beal 

 found that 5.45 percent of the food eaten during September did con- 

 sist of cultivated fruits but in most months the quantity was small, 

 and in March, April, and May was completely wanting. The total 

 amount of cultivated fruit eaten during the entire year was only 1 .20 

 percent. Of the wild fruits (26.19 percent) 46 species were identified. 

 A few seeds, ground-up vegetable matter not identified, and rubbish 

 made up the remainder of the vegetable food, or 9.10 percent of the 

 total. 



S. A. Forbes (1880) in the examination of 150 thrushes obtained in 

 Illinois found them destructive to useful predaceous beetles. The 

 worst of the group in this respect was the hermit thrush, which main- 

 tained a high ratio of these beetles throughout the fruit season when 

 the total insect food fell away rapidly. It is important in considering 

 the insect food of any species to take into account the beneficial as 

 well as harmful insects. 



While in its winter haunts of the Southern States the hermit thrush 

 feeds largely on wild fruits and berries such as dogwood, pokeberries, 

 serviceberries, holly berries, blueberries, mistletoe, frost grapes, elder- 

 berries, spiceberries, mulberries, blackberries, and seeds of the green- 

 brier, Virginia-creeper, and sumac including the poison-ivy and poison- 

 oak. 



The hermit keeps close to wooded retreats, and hence the products 

 of the farmer are seldom molested. The majority of the insects on 

 which it feeds are injuries to trees and hence it can be considered a 

 valuable tenant of the forest. 



Lewis O. Shelley (1930) reports that in southern New Hampshire 

 after a snowstorm on April 12, 1929, many species of birds including 

 the hermit thrush made efforts to find earthworms and insects near his 

 home. The thrushes became so tame that they readily took earth- 



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