They were taken very regular!)- through the months, and appear to be a favorite 

 food. 



Orthoptera — grasshoppers and crickets — amount to 20 per cent. They were 

 taken pretty regularly through all the months. Even the 3 stomachs secured in 

 December show an average of 44 per cent. Probably few of these were caught 

 on the wing, and their abundance in the food indicates that this bird, like many 

 others, forsakes its tisual style of feeding and goes to the ground to catch grass- 

 hoppers whenever they are numerous. Two stomachs were entirely filled with 

 these insects, and in several others they amounted to over '*0 per cent of the 

 contents. 



Miscellaneous insects, consisting of caterpillars and moths, a few bugs, flies, 

 and a dragonfly, constituted 10 per cent. Several stomachs contained a number 

 of moths, and one was entirely filled with them. Xot many birds eat these insects 

 extensively in the adult form, while the larvs (caterpillars) are a prominent fea- 

 ture of the diet of most insectivorous birds. Besides insects, bones of some 

 batrachian, probably a tree frog, were found in tlixee stomachs and an eggshell 

 in one. They amount to only a trifling percentage. Frogs or salamanders seem 

 r|ueer food for a flycatcher, but their bones have been found in the stomachs of 

 several species of tree-haunting insectivorous birds. 



Vegetable food. — The vegetable food of the .\rkansas kingbird amounts to 

 about 13 per cent, and consists mostly of fruit. It was all contained in 15 stomachs, 

 of which 10 held elderberries { Sauihitcits ) and .5 various small berries not posi- 

 tively identified. One also contained an olive, the only culti\ated fruit found. A 

 few seeds also were noted. 



In a summary of the economic significance of the food of this kingbird it 

 should be noted that the bird must be judged by its destruction of insects, for. 

 since it does not eat any product of cultivation to an appreciable extent, its vege- 

 table food can be disregarded. The ofl:'ense of eating- honev bees, so long laid at 

 this bird's door, is practically disproved, for the more or less useless drones eaten 

 far outnumber the useful workers. The injury the kingbird does, if any, is by 

 eating predaceous beetles and parasitic Hymenoptera, but it takes these in such 

 small numbers as to leave no reasoi-iable doubt that the bird is one of our most 

 useful species. 



529 



