No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 105 



increases the value of the crop by causing the production of 

 large, highly colored apples. Too much of this budding on a 

 single tree would be injurious, but I have never seen such a 

 case. 



Purple Finch. 

 Similar complaint comes from New Jersey' about a small 

 bird. On INIarch 22 the following from a New York daily 

 paper was sent me by Alfred Ela of Boston. It is quoted in 

 full to show how the injury was exaggerated: — 



A New Terror for Jersey. 



Strange Brown Bird is eating up Peach Trees at Alarming Rate. 



Egg HL^rbor, New Jersej'^, March 18. — Farmers in this vicinity are 



greatly agitated over the appearance here of a reddish brown bird, about 



the size of a sparrow, which is ferociously devouring the fruit buds from 



the trees in the large peach orchards. 



The bird, which has a small, stout, broad bill, attacks the limbs in the 

 same manner as a woodpecker works his way into a tree for worms. 



A letter to B. S. Bowdish, secretary of the New Jersey 

 Audubon Society, resulted not only in fixing the identity of 

 the bird (purple finch), but also secured a chance to examine 

 the stomachs of two. The birds had been shot by a New Jer- 

 sey fruit grower. The contents of the stomachs were as fol- 

 lows : — 



No. 1, male: — 

 A trace of sand. 



Vegetable fiber, possibly that of buds, about 25 per cent. 

 Weed seeds, about 75 per cent. 



No. 2, female: — 

 Sand, 20 per cent. 

 Vegetable fiber, 10 per cent. 

 Weed seed, 70 per cent. 



The weed seeds had been broken by the birds' bills and 

 ground into fragments in their powerful stomachs. The ma- 

 jority of the fragments of seed seemed to be those of the large 

 smartweed {Polygonum yennsylvanicum) , and were so identified 

 by Orton L. Clark of the Department of Vegetable Pathology 

 and Physiology at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. 



