CRESTED MYNAH 219 



Favorite feeding- grounds are in the Chinese gardens, where manure 

 and garbage piles have been allowed to accumulate. Here "they may 

 flock together in small groups or in numbers up to a hundred or more. 

 It is not unconnnon for the birds to feed about an abattoir, pigpen, 

 corral, or pasture, and v.'hile foraging frequently to associate with 

 crows (Corvus hrachyrhynchos) , English sparrows, and gulls {Larus 

 spp.)." 



Their table showing the percentages by month of the various food 

 items breaks down into the following monthly averages for the follow- 

 ing items: Flies, 11.04 percent; moths and caterpillars, 4.99 percent; 

 wasps, bees, and ants, 1.85 percent; bugs, 1.72 percent; beetles, 1.24 

 percent; grasshoppers, etc., 0.45 percent; miscellaneous insects, 1.15 

 percent ; spiders, 2.82 percent ; earthworms, 4.08 percent ; wild fruits, 

 27.80 percent; cultivated fruits, 4.70 percent; and grain, 2.54 per- 

 cent. Although most of the insects eaten are injurious or neutral, 

 a few useful forms are taken, such as predacious ichneumonoid wasps, 

 of which 16 were found in one stomach, and useful ground beetles. 



The mynah does good work in the destruction of house flies, which 

 it finds in the garbage and manui-e piles in larval and adult stages. 

 "No fewer than 225 pupae, 20 larvae, and 1 adult of the housefly were 

 found in one stomach and more than 200 larvae and pupae were found 

 in two others. Three additional July stomachs each contained more 

 than 100 of these flies." Tent caterpillars, cutworms, and measuring 

 worms, all very destruotive, made up the larger part of the lepidopter- 

 ous food. 



The mynah's record on its vegetable food is not so good. About one- 

 third of its food consists of fruits and berries; most of these are 

 wild varieties, such as elderberries, wild cherries, blueberries, crow- 

 berries, snowberries, salmonberries, loganberries, and serviceberries, 

 as well as the fruits of cascara, dogwood, mountain-ash, sumac, and 

 nightshade; but a substantial amount of the food consists of culti- 

 vated cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, and some 

 damage is done to apples and pears, cabbages, and lettuce ; the amount 

 of grain eaten is small and is mainly waste grain picked up in the fields 

 after harvesting or taken from garbage or manure piles. 



Mr. Kelly (1927) says that the eggs of smaller birds "form a large 

 part" of the diet. 



It can be seen from the above account that there is a great poten- 

 tiality for harm in the feeding habits of the crested mynah; if it 

 should become very abundant in the fruit-raising districts of the 

 Pacific States, it could do an immense amount of damage. It might 

 prove even worse than the European starling, which has a far better 

 record as a destroyer of harmful insects. For this reason, its spread 

 should be carefully watched and controlled before it is too late. 



