118 The Food of Birds. 



as a whole, we find that forty-nine per cent, of it consists 

 of insects, three per cent, of spiders and three per cent, of 

 thousand-legs, while forty-five per cent, consists of fruits, 

 twenty-one per cent, being raspberries, twelve per cent, 

 cherries, three per cent, strawberries and eight per cent, 

 currants. The ants of the month amounted to but eleven 

 per cent, and the crane-flies to seven per cent. The Lep- 

 idoptera stand at ten per cent, and the Ooleoptera at seven- 

 teen, — nearly one-third of the latter being Carabid^e. The 

 Hemiptera made about one per cent, of the food and the 

 Orthoptera two per cent. A single bird-louse (Mallophaga) 

 was found in the stomach of one of these birds. 



Ju ly . 



The record of this month rests upon eleven specimens, 

 all from central Illinois, taken from the first to the twenty- 

 third of the month. These indicate most clearly an emi- 

 nent preference of the species for the small fruits, which 

 composed three-fourths of their food, sixty-four per cent, 

 being blackberries alone. Spiders and myriapods, are 

 found in about the same ratio as in June. The latter are 

 all lulidae, a part of them, at least, belonging to the genus 

 lulus. The only Orthoptera noted were specimens of the 

 large black cricket of the fields { Oryllus ahhreviatus) eat- 

 en by a single bird. The Hemiptera almost disappear, a 

 single Thrips being the only representative of the order. 

 The Ooleoptera amounted only to nine per cent, of the 

 food, and more than two-thirds of these were predaceous 

 beetles, eaten by eight birds ; among these were noted 

 Cicindela lecontei., Pterostichus, Evarthrus, Cratacanthus 

 duhiuSi Anisodactylus baltimorensis and Harpalus. Only 

 a single bird had taken caterpillars, which constituted 

 three per cent, of the food of the month. No trace of Dip- 

 tera was found in the stomachs of these birds, and only 

 four had eaten ants, which made two per cent, of the total 

 food. Insects proper thus amounted to eighteen per cent, 

 of the whole. 



It is clear, from the foregoing, that the catbird in mid- 

 summer eats only such insects as come in its way while 

 regaling itself on the smaller fruits. 



