YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER 179 



stomachs, but amounted to 14.89 per cent. * * ♦ They belonged to several 

 families, including the house fly, horsefly, and the long-legged crane fly. * * * 

 Lcpidoptera were found in 28 stomachs, ot which 4 contained the adult moths 

 and 24 their larvae or caterpillars. * * * Spiders are eaten by this bird 

 to a greater extent than by any of the other flycatchers. They amount to 8.52 

 per cent of the food and are taken quite rosularly through the season. Begin- 

 ning with 2.21 per cent in May they gradually increase to 14.28 per cent in 

 September. Hymenoptera alone stand higher in the food of that month. With 

 the exception of certain nestlings no other species of bird yet studied shows so 

 high a percentage of spiders in its food, though wrens and titmice and some 

 warblers approach it. 



He reports that "the vegetable food consists of a few small fruits, none of 

 which are of domestic varieties, a few seeds of poison ivy, some cedar foliage, 

 some scales from a bud, and rubbish. The poison ivy is the only thing of any 

 interest and that was found in only one stomach." 



Dr. J. M. Wlieaton (1882) noticed a pair of birds, which he after- 

 ward identified as yellow-bellied flycatchers, "feeding on some elm 

 saplings. Alighting near the bottom of the trunk they hopped from 

 one to another of the alternate tw'igs, ascending spirally. Meantime 

 they gathered their food, which I soon discovered to be small black 

 ants." 



Gardner P. Stickney wrote an interesting letter to Professor Beal 

 about some unusual feeding habits of this flycatcher, which was after- 

 ward published (Stickney, 1923). During the latter part of Sep- 

 tember there was a heavy, wet snowstorm at his camp in northern 

 Wisconsin, and after the storm many birds came to feed on the 

 berries of the mountain-ash trees : 



In the afternoon of the day following the storm, two yellow-bellied fly- 

 catchers appeared among the other birds in these small trees and seemed to 

 be very fond of the mountain-ash berries. Instead of handling the berries as 

 the other birds did, the flycatcher would pick a berry and crush it between 

 its mandibles, getting out the pulp and dropping the skin, rather perfectly 

 clean, to the ground. There were so many of the birds of various sorts and 

 the berries were going so rapidly, that I detached four or five bunches of the 

 berries and took them into camp. 



It took only two or three days for the birds to otherwise entirely denude the 

 trees of the berries and after the last berry had been picked from the trees, 

 I noted two flycatchers hopping around on the ground and picking up the ber- 

 ries which had been dropped as the' various species were feeding in the trees. 

 The flycatchers were very tame and it occurred to me that I might feed them 

 with some of the berries which) I had previously picked and had in camp. 

 Working very carefully in an hour or two I had these two yellow-bellied fly- 

 catchers on my knee, picking the mountain-ash berries from between my thumb 

 and fore-finger. It was a very delightful experience and it was interesting to 

 see how thoroughly the flycatchers would clean the berries, eating everything 

 but the skins, which they invariably dropped to the ground. The birds stayed 

 around for two or three days, in fact as long as I had any berries to feed theno, 

 and then disappeared. The last day that they were with us was bright and 

 sunny and they spent most of their time fly-catching, but would occasionally 

 come back to me and take a berry. 



