The Baltimore Oriole 163 



hundred and thirteen stomachs. The food for the whole sea- 

 son consisted of 83.4 per cent, of insect matter and 16.6 per 

 cent, of vegetable matter. The most important item of the 

 insect food consisted of caterpillars, which aggregated more 

 than 34 per cent, of the whole. Beetles of various families 

 and species ranked next to the caterpillars in abundance. 

 Those most eaten were the click or snapping beetles. These 

 beetles and their larvae, known as wireworms, are among 

 the most destructive insects with which the farmer has to con- 

 tend. Of them Professor Comstock says: "There is hardly a 

 cultivated plant that they do not infest; and working as they 

 do, beneath the surface of the ground, it is extremely difficult 

 to destroy them. Not only do they infest a great variety of 

 plants, but they are apt to attack them at the most susceptible- 

 period of their growth, before they have attained sufficient size 

 and strength to withstand the attack, and often the seed is de- 

 stroyed before it is germinated. Thus fields of corn or other 

 grain are ruined at the outset." For its vegetable food the 

 oriole prefers fruit, but also eats grain and the seeds of weeds. 

 The report showed that six kinds of fruits were found in the 

 stomachs, namely, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, mulber- 

 ries, Juneberries and elderberries, grapes and peas, but the 

 harm done to these is probably overestimated. The report 

 closes with these words, "let the farmer continue to hold his 

 good opinion of the oriole and accord it the protection it so- 

 well deserves." 



