The Food of Birds. 155 



of the month is the almost total disappearance of (Joleop- 

 tera, which were represented only by a few small Harpa- 

 lids and a single minute Ata^nius. The Lepidoptera rise 

 to thirty-seven per cent., chiefly through the abundance of 

 the larvae of Prodenia lineatella^ Harvey. The Orthoptera 

 make nearly half the food, the species differing from 

 those of the preceding month mainly in the greater num- 

 ber of red-legged grasshoppers. Spiders were only two 

 per cent, of the food ; and some unknown wild fruits 

 formed seven per cent. It will be seen that a striking 

 change in the food of this species attends that increase of 

 the Orthoptera in numl)ers and activity Avhich occurs in 

 the late summer and early autumnal months, these insects 

 being almost entirely substituted for Coleoptera, Hemip- 

 tera and Arachnida. The Coleoptera of the six preceding 

 months averaged twenty-seven per cent, of the food, while 

 this order amounts to but three per cent, in August and 

 September. The Orthoptera of the foregoing months av- 

 eraged but fourteen per cent., while those of the two 

 months in question rise to fifty-four per cent. It is evi- 

 dent from the foregoing tliat Orthoptera and smooth cat- 

 erpillars are the favorite autumnal food of this bird, and 

 as the first of these remain abundant until frost, it is not 

 likely that the food of October is much less favorable to 

 the bird than that of September. The two specimens taken 

 in the former month were well filled with winged ants. 



D ec emh er . 



To learn the food of the bluebird in midwinter, I went 

 to extreme southern Illinois in December, 1879, and shot 

 a number of specimens, some from the heavy forests in the 

 bottoms of the Ohio River, and others from the wooded and 

 cultivated highlands in Pulaski county. The weather at 

 this time was sometimes above and sometimes below freez- 

 ing, and bluebirds were abundant and very much at home. 

 The principal food of the twelve specimens examined 

 consisted chiefly of various wild fruits (eighty-four per 

 cent.), of which the berries of the m\)iWeioe {Phoraden- 

 dron ffavescens) were the most abundant (fifty-eight per 



