THE FLICKER. 61 



habit. In Michigan it seems to have a preference for the 

 mound-building ants (Purdy). In Georgia there are myriads 

 of small red ants which infest every path and byway in sum- 

 mer and one cannot help noticing their funnel-shaped a])odes ; 

 upon these ants it wages eternal warfare so that its flesh 

 becomes so thoroughly impregnated with the pungent odor so 

 peculiar to these little insects as to be clearly preceptil)le when 

 removing the skin. It also preys upon a black ant found 

 luider the bark of dead trees, but as they are not so plentiful 

 as the former, they do not predominate as an article of food 

 (Smith). I have the result of an examination of twenty-five 

 stomachs, including seven taken from juveniles, collected in 

 DeKalb County, Georgia, by Mr. Robert Windsor Smith. 

 Every month in the year is represented with the exception of 

 May, August and November. In all but two, quantities of 

 either red or black ants were found, with a fair amount of un- 

 determined fragments of Cokoptera in ten, one contained a 

 mole cricket in addition to the ants, another three grubs and a 

 large black ground beetle, while the October bird had eaten its 

 fill of gumberries, the same fruit being found with an assort- 

 ment of insects in the two September birds. Somewhat to my 

 surprise the January bird had eaten the largest number of 

 insects, its stomach being distended with the S41 ants, frag- 

 ments of 2 ground beetles and S pieces of white gravel ( 20!) 

 small red ants, 492 small winged ants, 40 pupa, 8 mound- 

 building ants, 7 ants — species undetermined). The .seven 

 young birds had left the nest, though occasionally fed by 

 adults, and were taken between June 2Sth and July ISth — five 

 in '9<S and two in '91). All contained red ants with the addi- 

 tion of wild cherries in them, and beetles in a fourth. A small 

 quantity of white gravel found in all or nearly all young. The 

 stomach of one taken on July 12th contained .several pieces of 

 red gravel, in addition to quite a quantity of the usual white 

 flint, and another that two days later had swallowed a splinter 

 of weather-beaten w^ood, probably their first attempts to feed 

 themselves. In Iowa it is often seen darting after in.sects in 

 the manner of Flycatchers. Stomachs examined have inva- 

 riably contained remains of Carabid and Scarabid beetles, with 

 the skins of Lepidopterus larvae and numerous ants (Jones ) . 

 In Pennsylvania I have found as much as 157 large black 



