272 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



" In isolated cases Ruffed Grouse cause some damage to fruit 

 trees by eating the buds in winter. The extent of the injury 

 which a grouse is capable of doing in a season may be estimated 

 from the contents of a crop examined by us. It was taken from 

 a female shot in January, and contained three hundred and forty- 

 seven apple-tree buds, eighty-eight maple buds, and twelve leaves 

 of sheep laurel. This was, of course, a single meal ; and, as two 

 such meals are eaten per day, it must be reckoned as half the 

 daily consumption. 



" One of the crops of four birds killed during the latter part 

 of September and subjected to the same scrutiny showed bar- 

 berries five per cent, sumac seeds twenty per cent, and apple 

 pulp twenty per cent. Another contained ten per cent of mush- 

 rooms and ninety per cent of red-humped oak caterpillars 

 (Edema albifrons). The other two were shot from the same 

 flock at the same time. Their crops were packed with the oak 

 caterpillars above mentioned and white-oak acorns, the ratios 

 being sixty per cent and seventy-seven per cent of caterpillars, 

 against forty per cent and twenty-three per cent of acorns, re- 

 spectively." (Weed and Dearborn.) 



This habit of eating the buds of trees probably does little 

 harm, and is more than offset by the diet of the young in the 

 spring, which appears to be almost wholly insectivorous, judg- 

 ing from the few published records. 



PIGEONS. 

 Columbida. 



The Passenger Pigeon (Ecto pistes migratorius) is so near 

 extinction that we need only regret its loss without discussing 

 its economic value. 



The Mourning Dove (Zenaidura macroura carolinensis) , how- 

 ever, though not abundant with us, is of such great value as a 

 weed destroyer that a quotation from Dr. Judd's paper on " Birds 

 as Weed Destroyers," in the Year Book of the Department of 

 Agriculture for 1898, will not be out of place in this report as 

 evidence that our turtle dove's chief usefulness is not as game. 



" It is pre-eminently a seed eater, and, although at times turn- 

 ing its attention to grain, it nevertheless consumes an enormous 



