VEERT 223 



strawberries, blackberries, wild cherries, sumac and dogwood fruits, blueberries, 

 wild grapes, and elderberries. 



Beetles, ants and other hymenoptera, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and spiders are 

 the principal constituents of the six-tenths of its food which the Veery derives 

 from the animal kingdom. A few sowbugs and snails also are eaten. Click 

 beetles (the parents of wireworms), round-headed and flat-headed wood borers, 

 leaf chafers, junebugs, leaf beetles, the strawberry crown girdler, the plum cur- 

 culio, clover root borers, bark beetles, plant bugs, and sawfly larvae are especially 

 injurious insects devoured by the Veery. 



The bird seems to do little or no harm, and feeds on various destructive insects, 

 so deserves protection for its usefulness, as well as it does in an eminent degree for 

 being an adornment to the forest, both in appearance and in song. 



Edward H. Forbush (1907) speaks of the food thus: 



The Veery feeds very largely on insects. Those which frequent the ground and 

 the lower parts of trees are commonly sought. Ants, ground beetles, curculios, 

 and grasshoppers are favorites. It goes to the fields sometimes at early morning, 

 probably in search of beetles, cutworms, and earthworms. It has been seen, 

 now and then, to eat the hairy caterpillars of the gipsy moth. It feeds consider- 

 ably in the trees, and so takes many caterpillars; but is not usually seen much in 

 gardens or orchards, except such as are situated near woods. In summer and fall 

 it eats wild fruit, but seldom troubles cultivated varieties. Taken all in all, it is 

 a harmless and most useful species. 



We see the veery most commonly when it is feeding, down on the 

 forest floor, hopping along — the hop almost a spring, a characteristic 

 of the Hylocichlae — turning over the dead leaves and decaying vege- 

 tation, and snapping up the bits of food it finds there. It reminds us, 

 as it feeds on the ground, somewhat of a fox sparrow, except that it 

 does not jump up and throw the leaves backward with the strong 

 scratching motion of the sparrow but thrusts about with its bill to 

 expose its food. 



Francis H. Allen (MS.), while watching a wood thrush and a veery 

 feeding near at hand, noted that "while the wood thrush hopped along 

 in the manner of a robin, more or less, the veery was continually 

 flitting from a perch in a bush or tree (2 to 4 feet from the ground) 

 down to the ground, where he picked up an insect or something of the 

 kind, and then again to another perch." 



Behavior. — The veery belongs to a group of small American thrushes 

 much admired for the exceptional beauty of their song, their trim 

 elegance of figure, and the quiet, reserved dignity of their manner, 

 which has won for them the epithet of the aristocrats of North 

 American birds. They make up the genus Hylocichla, composed of 

 five species and several geographical races, which inhabit a large area 

 in the United States and Canada. Members of the genus are found 

 as breeding birds from the Austral to the Hudsonian Zones, inclusive, 

 being arranged roughly in latitudinal belts that slightly overlap, and 

 are made irregular by the effects of altitude. The^veery breeds 



