GAME, AQUATIC, AND RAPACIOUS BIRDS. 



17 



weevil, rice weevil, cowpea curculio, white-pine weevil, and bill bugs. 

 The latter alone constitute more than 2 per cent of the whole food. 

 The alfalfa weevil, a new and destructive pest, is relished by the 

 killdeer, 41 being found in a single stomach. Other destructive 

 beetles devoured are white grubs and their adult forms, the May 

 beetles; wireworms and their imagos, the click beetles; larvae of the 

 genus Ligyrus, which attack sugar cane, corn, and carrots; brown- 

 fruit beetles, which 

 injure apples and 

 corn; the grapevine 

 leaf-beetle; south- 

 ern corn-leaf beetle; 

 two-striped tortoise 

 beetle, which injures 

 sweet potatoes; and 

 a flea beetle which 

 attacks tobacco and 

 sugar beets. 



Cicadas, buffalo 

 tree hoppers, and 

 negro bugs, the last 

 named injuring 

 parsley and rasp- 

 berries, are some of 

 the true bugs rel- 

 ished by the kill- 

 deer. Caterpillars 

 are a favorite article 

 of diet, and several 

 very injurious spe- 

 cies are eaten, as 

 the cotton worm, 

 cotton cutworm, 

 other cutworms, and 

 caterpillars of the 

 genus Phlegethon- 

 tius, which damage 

 tomatoes and tobacco. Grasshoppers and crickets, including mole 

 crickets, are a staple food. Two-winged flies or Diptera furnish 

 11.91 per cent of the food of the killdeer. Such pests as crane flies 

 and their larvae, known as leatherjackets, are eaten, as well as horse- 

 flies and mosquitoes and their larvae. One stomach contained hun- 

 dreds of larvae of the salt marsh mosquito (Aedes sollicitans), which 

 is one of the most troublesome of the biting species. The State of 



497 



Killdeer. 



