THE ROBIN. 161 
“The food of the Robin,” the Professor says, ‘while with us, 
consists principally of worms, various insects, their larve and eggs, 
and a few cherries. Of worms and cherries they can procure but 
few, and those during but a short period; and they are obliged, 
therefore, to subsist principally upon the great destroyers of leaves, 
— canker-worms, and some other kinds of caterpillars and bugs. If 
each robin, old and young, requires for its support an amount of 
these equal to the weight consumed by this bird, it is easy to see 
what a prodigious havoc a few hundred of these must make upon 
the insects of an orchard or nursery.” 
Wilson Flagg, an acute and careful observer of the habits 
of our birds, gives some of his experiences of the Robin, 
as follows. He says, — 
« Before I had investigated the habits of this bird, with particular 
reference to the service he renders to agriculture, I supposed he 
was only of secondary importance, compared with the Blackbird 
and others that possess the faculty of discovering and seizing the 
grubs that lie concealed beneath the surface of the ground. Though 
the Robin does not possess this faculty, he is pre-eminently service- 
able in other ways; and the more I have studied his habits, the 
more @ am convinced of his usefulness. Indeed, I am now fully 
persuaded that he is valuable beyond all other species of birds, and 
that his services are absolutely indispensable to the farmers of New 
England. Some persons believe that the Robin is exclusively a 
frugivorous bird, and that for fruit he will reject all other food that 
is within his reach. Others believe that his diet consists about 
equally of fruits and angle-worms, but that he is not a general con- 
sumer of insects. The truth is, the Robin is almost exclusively 
insectivorous, and uses fruit, as we do, only as a dessert, and not 
for his subsistence, except in the winter, when his insect food cannot 
be obtained. He is not omnivorous, like the Crow, the Jay, and the 
Blackbird. He rejects farinaceous food unless it is artificially pre- 
pared, derives almost his entire support from insects and grubs, and 
consumes, probably, a greater variety of species than any other 
bird. I am entirely at a loss to account for this very prevalent and 
mistaken notion respecting the frugivorous habits of the Robin. 
ill 
