122 The Food of Birds. 



Wild cherries take the place of these fruits in September, 

 and grapes are then eaten to some slight extent. 



A comparison of the statements of this paper with the 

 report published in the Transactions of the Illinois Horti- 

 cultural Society for 1879, will give some interesting results. 

 The former paper relates to thirty-seven specimens, ob- 

 tained during the three months of May, June and July ; 

 and the present paper relates to seventy birds, taken dur- 

 ing five months from May to September. As both the ad- 

 ditional months extend the fruit season, we should expect 

 the insect averages would now be smaller than before and 

 that the averages of fruit would show a corresponding in- 

 crease. This I find to be the principal difference between 

 these tables. The various insect elements stand in about 

 the same ratio to each other as before, except the ants 

 (whose swarming in autumn accounts for their greater 

 prominence in the food), and the Hemiptera and Orthop- 

 tera. The first of these orders figures more largely in the 

 general averages for 1880 because this was a "chinch-bug 

 year" in central Illinois; and the second because grass- 

 hoppers, locusts and crickets greatly increase in numbers 

 during the later months. In the earlier table, insects 

 amount to fifty-six per cent, of the food ; in the later, only 

 to forty-three ; ants are respectively ten and twelve, Dip- 

 tera thirteen and five, Lepidoptera ten and seven, Ooleop- 

 tera nineteen and twelve, Carabidas eight and five, leaf- 

 chafers four and three, snout-beetles three and one, He- 

 miptera one and two, Orthoptera two and three, Arachnida 

 three and two, Myriapoda six and three and the edible 

 fruits twenty-seven and forty-one. 



The C a third and the Rohin. 



In order to a more exact comparison of the food-habits 

 of the catbird and the robin, I have computed the aver- 

 ages of the principal elements of the robin's food for the 

 period of five months covered by the catbird's record, and 

 give these here alternately with the corresponding aver- 

 ages of the catbird. The ants eaten by the robin during 

 these months amounted to five per cent, of the food, and 

 those by the catbird to twelve per cent. Diptera were 



