THE AMOUNT OF FOOD CONSUMED BY BIRDS. 67 



all hut two were green, some belonging to the family Aeri- 

 diidoe and others to the family Locustidce. 



Dr. Sylvester D. Judd, 1 from an observation on the food of 

 three young house-wrens about three-fourths grown, reports 

 that "The mother made one hundred and ten visits to her 

 little ones in four hours and thirty-seven minutes, and fed 

 them one hundred and eleven spiders and insects. Among 

 these were identified one white grub, one soldier-bug, three 

 millers (NoctuMcR), nine spiders, nine grasshoppers, fifteen 

 May-flies, and thirty-four caterpillars. On the following day 

 similar observations were made from 9.35 a.m. till 12.40 p.m., 

 and in the three hours and five minutes the young were fed 

 sixty-seven times. Spiders were identified in four instances, 

 grasshoppers in five, May-flies in seventeen, and caterpillars 

 in twenty." 



Four chipping-sparrows about five days old devoured 

 thirty-seven grasshoppers, several of which were adults, but 

 most of them half-grown nymphs, between 4.37 and 6.06 p.m., 

 — eighty-nine minutes. The next morning between 9.56 and 

 10.45, — forty-nine minutes, — they ate eighteen grasshoppers 

 and two full-grown measuring worms (Oingilia). A single 

 young chippy lately out of the nest was seen to take food 

 — grasshoppers chiefly — thirty times in sixty-five minutes. 



A brood of three chipping-sparrows watched by us one 

 entire day received food one hundred and eighty-seven times. 

 It was not possible to determine the exact nature of all that 

 was brought, but it appeared to be wholly insectivorous, cut- 

 worms and other caterpillars being often observed. 2 



These observations are certainly sufficient to establish the 

 fact that birds as a class consume an enormous amount of 

 food. 



1 Yearbook, U. S. Dept. of Agr.,1900, p. 413. 



2 Weed, Feeding Habits of the Chipping-Sparrow, N. H. C. Ag. Exp. 

 St., Bull. 55. 



