The Food of BinU. 97 



but shall endeavor to show only what it eats under ordina- 

 ry circumstances within the limits of Illinois. The spe- 

 cies is not strictly migratory, but is reported as wintering, 

 sometimes in considerable numbers, as far north as the 

 White Mountains, in New Hampshire. It occurs but very 

 rarely in winter in central or northern Illinois, as there is 

 at that season not sufficient food to tempt it to brave our 

 prairie winds. On the other hand, it is comparatively rare 

 in southern Illinois in summer, but usually abundant there 

 in autumn and winter, so that as far as this state is con- 

 cerned, it is practically a migrant within our limits. In 

 the latitude of Bloomington its advent depends on the for- 

 wardness of the season, but it usually appears not far from 

 the first of March, and the last of the species are gone by 

 October 15th or November 1st. 



The nesting habit of this species is so varied that no 

 special provision need be made by those wishing to encour- 

 age its multiplication. The lower branches of orchard trees 

 are probably its favorite situation, but it selects the most 

 various places and uses little art or caution in the conceal- 

 ment of its nest. 



F e h r uar y . 



The robin appeared at Bloomington, this year, in consid- 

 erable numbers, about the middle of February, the spring 

 being an unusually early and open one. 



Eleven specimens were shot at Normal, on the 27th and 

 28th, and their stomachs carefully searched for food. We 

 first note that ninety-nine per cent, pf the food of these 

 birds was insects, the remaining one per cent, being spi- 

 ders. About fourteen per cent, of the food of these early 

 birds consisted of caterpillars, all of them eaten by three 

 birds, while seventy-six per cent, taken by every bird, 

 was the larva of a slow, torpid fly, abundant in early sum- 

 mer, closely related to the Tipulids or crane-flies {Blhlo 

 albipennis, Say). Prof. J. W. P. Jenks, now of Brown 

 University, found this same larva to constitute about nine- 

 tenths of the food of the robins examined by him in Mas- 

 sachusetts, in February and March, 1858, — a fact which 

 indicates a remarkable fixity of food habits, unaffected by 

 twenty years of time and a distance of a thousand miles. 



