322 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of the contents of one January stomach and 93 percent of the food in 

 an October stomach consisted of Carabidae. Ants were eaten to the 

 extent of 4.71 percent, bees and wasps amounted to less than 0.5 

 percent, and he found only a trace of flies (Diptera) ; it seems strange 

 that a bird, supposed to take so much of its food on the wing, should 

 have eaten so few of these flying insects. Hemiptera were found to 

 the extent of 3.51 percent, grasshoppers amounted to less than 1 

 percent, and there was only a trifle of other insects. Spiders were 

 eaten to the extent 2.94 percent, and there was one hairworm (Gordius). 

 More than half of the vegetable food was wild fruit or berries, and 

 there was no evidence that any cultivated food had been taken. He 

 found cedar berries in six stomachs, madrona berries in five, hack- 

 berries and rose haws in two each, and serviceberries, wild cherries, 

 sumac berries, poison ivy, waxwork, honeysuckle berries, and elder- 

 berries in one stomach each. 



Strangely enough, he does not mention mistletoe seeds, which others 

 have referred to as a favorite food; these viscid seeds are swallowed 

 whole and passed through the alimentary canal to adhere where they 

 fall; thus these birds help to spread this parasite, as well as the poison- 

 ivy. Pine seeds, pinyon seeds, and kinnikinnick berries have been 

 mentioned by other observers. 



Dr. G. F. Knowlton has sent me the following note on the contents 

 of two stomachs: "Recognizable stomach contents consisted of one 

 nymphal Orthoptera, six Hemiptera, one being a scutellerid and an- 

 other a mirid; three adult caddisflies; 11 beetles, one being a weevil 

 and another a click bettle; four lepidopterous larvae, apparently cut- 

 worms; two Diptera, one being a crane fly; 17 Hymenoptera, all but 

 two of which were ants, three being carpenter ants. One stomach 

 held four berries; the other contained plant pulp and piant fragments." 

 The birds were taken on June 20 and July 2, in Utah. 



I. McT. Cowan (1942) includes Townsend's solitaire among the 

 birds that feed on the termite Zooterrnopsis angusticollis. And Leslie 

 L. Haskin (1919) adds angleworms to the list, "which it secured 

 Robin fashion, except that instead of watching for them from the 

 ground it would drop down upon them from the lower limbs of the 

 fruit trees, returning immediately to its perch. In fact, during the 

 entire time I watched it, I did not see it take more than half a dozen 

 hops along the ground." He also watched it "taking its prey in 

 Bluebird fashion, by watching for it from fence-posts and stumps, 

 and dropping to the ground only when an insect had been located, 

 returning immediately to its point of observation." 



Many observers have referred to the solitaire's flycatching habits, 

 and it has been called the "flycatching thrush." Samuel F. Rathbun 

 watched a pair thus engaged for nearly half an hour and says in his 



