242 ENTOMOLOGY 



of the nestlings, according to Judd, is essentially like that of the adults, 

 being "beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, spiders and a few snails." 



Other Insectivorous Birds. Weed and Dearborn, from whose 

 excellent work the following notes are taken, find that the common 

 chickadee devours immense numbers of canker worms, and that more 

 than half its food during winter consists of insects, largely in the Jprm of 

 eggs, including those of the common tent caterpillar (C. americana), 

 the fall web worm (H. cunea) and particularly plant lice, whose eggs, 

 small as they are, form more than one fifth of the entire food ; more than 

 four hundred and fifty of them are sometimes eaten by a single bird in 

 one day, and the total number destroyed annually is inconceivably 

 large. The house wren is almost exclusively insectivorous, feeding 

 upon caterpillars and other larvae, ants, grasshoppers, gnats, beetles, 

 bugs, spiders, and myriopods. The swallows, also, are highly insecti- 

 vorous; "most of their food is captured on the wing, and consists of 

 small moths, two-winged flies, especially crane flies, beetles in great 

 variety, flying bugs, and occasionally small dragon flies. The young 

 are fed with insects." Ninety per cent, of the food of the kingbird 

 "consists of insects, including such noxious species as May beetles, 

 click-beetles, wheat and fruit weevils, grasshoppers, and leafhoppers." 

 The honey bees eaten by this bird are insignificant in number. Wood- 

 peckers destroy immense numbers of wood-boring larvae, bark-insects, 

 ants, caterpillars, etc. The cuckoos "are unique in having a taste for 

 insects that other birds reject. Most birds are ready to devour a smooth 

 caterpillar that comes their way, but they leave the hairy varieties 

 severely alone. The cuckoos, however, make a specialty of devouring 

 such unpalatable creatures; even stink bugs and the poisonous spiny 

 larvae of the lo moth are freely taken." Caterpillars form fifty per 

 cent, of the food for the year; Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids, and 

 tree crickets), thirty per cent.; Coleoptera and Hemiptera, six per cent, 

 each; and flies and ants are taken in small quantities. "The nestling 

 birds are fed chiefly with smooth caterpillars and grasshoppers, their 

 stomachs probably being unable to endure the hairy caterpillars. All 

 in all, the cuckoos are of the highest economic value. They do no 

 harm and accomplish great good. If the orchardist could colonize 

 his orchards with them, he would escape much loss." The quail feeds 

 largely upon insects during the summer, frequently eating the Colorado 

 potato beetle and the army worm; the prairie hen has similar food 

 habits but lives almost exclusively on grasshoppers, when these are 

 abundant. 



