claimed that the\- pull sprouting grain, but no evidence of damage to either grain 

 or other crops is afforded by the examination of more than 500 stomachs. On 

 the other hand, the evidence is ample that they do much good. The redbird is 

 known to feed on the Rocky Mountain locust, periodical cicada, and Colorado 

 potato beetle. It is a great enemy also to the rose chafer, cotton worm, plum or 

 cherry scale, and other scale insects, and attacks many other important insect 

 pests, including the zebra caterpillar of the cabbage, the cucumber beetles, bill- 

 bugs, locust flea-beetle, corn-ear worm, cotton cutworm, southern figeater, codling 

 moth, and boll weevil. In addition, it consumes a great many seeds of injurious 

 weeds. Thus its food habits entitle the bird to our esteem, as its brilliant coat 

 and spirited song compel our admiration. 



The black-headed grosbeak ranges from southern Mexico to British Colum- 

 bia. North Dakota, and Nebraska. It fills the same place in the West that the 

 rosebreast does in the East, and economically is fully as important. In parts of 

 its range it is destructive to early fruit and attacks also green peas and beans. 

 However, since bv proper precautions such losses may lie minimized or altogether 

 prevented, they should not be given too much weight in estimating the value of 

 the bird. Instead of being regarded as an enemy by western orchardists, the 

 blackhead should be esteemed as a friend, since it is a foe to the worst pests of 

 horticulture — the scale insects — which compose a fourth of its food. The black 

 olive scale alone constitutes a fifth of the bird's subsistence, and the frosted scale 

 and apricot scale, or European fruit Lecanium, also are destroyed. In May con- 

 siderable numbers of cankerworms and codling moths are eaten, and almost a 

 sixth of the bird's seasonal food consists of flower beetles, which do incalculable 

 damage to cultivated flowers and to ripe fruit. For each quart of fruit consumea 

 by the black-headed grosbeak it destroys in actual bulk more than one and a half 

 quarts of black olive scales, one quart of flower beetles, besides a generous quan- 

 tity of codling moth pupae and cankerworms. So eft'ectively does it fight these 

 pests that the necessity for its preservation is obvious, while most of its injury 

 to fruit is preventable. 



This small but beautiful bird, breeds over the southern two-thirds of the 

 United States. It is rather rare in the northeastern part of this range, but is 

 common locally in the southern and western parts. Blue grosbeaks do no damage 

 during the nesting period, and. in fact, are of great value to any farm they choose 

 for a home, since they eat large numbers of injurious insects and feed their young 

 exclusively upon them. In certain localities, however, after the breeding season, 

 blue grosbeaks collect in flocks, move into grainfields, partictilarly those of oats 

 and rice, and sometimes do considerable harm. Despite such depredations, the 

 loss of cereals is repaid many fold, since the birds consume almost five times as 

 much insect food as grain. Moreover some of the insects they devour are espe- 

 cially destructive, such as weevils. More than a fourth of the seasonal food is 

 composed of grasshoppers, including the lesser migratory locust. A tenth of the 

 subsistence is made up of purslane caterpillars and cotton cutworms, enemies of 



455 



