December, '12] WEBSTER: INSECTS OF IOWA 469^ 



botrana) was common, and on some trellises the greater part of the 

 fruit was found affected. The insect is not difficult to deal with by 

 careful pruning, clearing away all rubbish, and spraying, as it is gen- 

 erally on vines that are somewhat neglected that it does mischief. 



One of the most common birds about Lexington is the crow black- 

 bird {Quiscalus quiscula). It begins to flock soon after it has i^roduced 

 its young in the early part of the season and thereafter constantly for- 

 ages in the country surrounding Lexington, coming into town in the 

 evening at dusk in immense numbers to roost about certain premises. 

 For years thousands of these birds have passed over the Experiment 

 Station on their way to a group of evergreen and other trees a short 

 distance beyond the Station grounds. They sometimes become so 

 numerous that citizens complain of them because of the litter they 

 make and of their noise and clatter when roosting in the trees. Be- 

 cause of this, numbers of them have been shot at times. Some j^ears 

 ago I made a study of the food of the birds and found that while they 

 undoubtedly pick up a good deal of grain, most of it is refuse, and they 

 destroy large numbers of insects, such as June-bugs, w^eevils and the 

 like, which they find on sod land. The appearance of the fall army 

 worm in the vicinity this year led me to think that the bird might be 

 doing good by destroying this insect, since its food is taken almost 

 entirely from the ground. I had a number of birds shot, and on exam- 

 ining the contents of the stomachs found that they were feeding 

 almost entirely on grasshoppers which had been everywhere common 

 during the season. The thousands of birds gathering in this region 

 must do the farmers valuable service in the destruction of these insects. 

 I estimated that 93.8 per cent of the food consisted of insects, most of 

 it grasshoppers and the rest fragments of beetles with traces of a few 

 other insects. No fall army worms were found in the stomachs 

 examined. 



INSECTS OF THE YEAR 1912 IN IOWA 



By R. L. Webster 



Following a winter of extremely low temperatures the spring of 

 1912 in Iowa opened late. Excess of snow^ during the winter made the 

 soil quite moist when this melted, but the summer was dry over most 

 of the state. The late summer was characterized by much rain. The 

 following notes are extracted from the insectary and field records of 

 the entomological section of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion at Ames. 



