54 USEFUL BIRDS. 



of the parent birds were filled with a mass of small insects, 

 mainly ants and plant lice, to which were added a few spiders. 

 These young were also fully fledged. 1 



The number of young in the nests of the smaller perch- 

 ing birds is usually from three to five. In the case of the 

 Chickadees mentioned above there were seven, and in another 

 case that I have recently observed there were nine. Chick- 

 adees and Wrens, because of their insectivorous habits and 

 the large broods they rear, probably reach the maximum in 

 the number of insects brought to their young. 



Dr. Judd gives an account of the feeding of some young 

 House Wrens by the mother bird alone. These young Wrens 

 were about three-fourths grown, and were visited one hun- 

 dred and ten times in four hours and thirty-seven minutes. 

 They were fed, during this time, one hundred and eleven 

 insects and spiders. Among these were identified one white 

 grub, one soldier bug, three millers (Noctuidae), nine spiders, 

 nine grasshoppers, fifteen May flies, and thirty-four cater- 

 pillars. On the following day, in three hours and five min- 

 utes, the young were fed sixty-seven times. 2 



Professor Aughey states that during a locust year in 

 Nebraska he saw a pair of Long-billed Marsh Wrens take 

 thirty-one small locusts to their nest in an hour. It is inter- 

 esting to note that a pair of Rock Wrens that he watched 

 took just thirty-two locusts to their nest in another hour. 3 



Another observer is reported by Dr. Barton to have seen 

 a pair of Wrens coming from their box and returning with 

 insects from forty to sixty times an hour. In an exceptional 

 hour they carried food seventy-one times. He estimates 

 that at that time they took from the garden six hundred 

 insects per day. 4 



Few people, unfortunately, who are qualified for the task, 



1 Two Years with the Birds on a Farm. Annual report of the Massachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture, 1902, p. 129. 



2 The Birds of a Maryland Farm, hy Sylvester D. Judd. Bulletin No. 17, 

 United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Biological Survey, 

 pp. 45, 46. 



3 Notes on the Nature of the Food of Nebraska Birds, by S. A. Aughey. First 

 Report of the United States Entomological Commission, 1877, Appendix, p. 18. 



4 Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, by Dr. B. S. Barton, 

 Part I, 1799, p. 22. 



