BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 285 



ordinary food of the bird in that region. In the one case 

 much fruit and few insects were found in the birds' stom- 

 achs ; in the other case the birds' stomachs were filled with 

 the caterpillars of the American silkworm which Mr. Trou- 

 velot was breeding, and contained no fruit, although wild 

 berries were plentiful all about. The Robin might be a pest 

 in Ohio and a blessing in Massachusetts. It is a great fruit 

 eater, but it takes none of man's products except fruit, and 

 in Massachusetts small fruits alone suffer materially from its 

 attacks. 



Professor Beal, who probably has examined more stomachs 

 of Robins from different regions than any other investigator, 

 states that vegetable food formed nearly fifty-eight per cent, 

 of the contents of three hundred and thirty stomachs ; forty- 

 seven per cent, of the vegetable matter consisted of wild 

 fruits, and only a little more than four per cent, of varieties 

 that were possibly cultivated. This seems to sustain the 

 contention that, where wild fruit is plentiful, as it is in many 

 parts of the country, it is preferred by the Robin to culti- 

 vated fruit. The greatest quantity of cultivated fruit is 

 eaten in late June and in early July, when early cherries 

 and strawberries ripen, and before there is much ripe wild 

 fruit. Thus in Illinois Professor Forbes found that in June 

 fifty-five per cent, of the food of the Robin consisted of 

 cherries and raspberries, and fourteen birds that he exam- 

 ined, killed in July, had revelled in the fruit garden. Rasp- 

 berries, blackberries, and currants formed seventy-nine per 

 cent, of their food. Cherries made forty-four parts of the 

 food eaten in August by fourteen birds, but two-thirds of 

 these cherries were wild. 



Where early wild fruits are plentiful the Robins do far 

 less injury to cultivated fruits. A list of the wild fruits eaten 

 by birds is given in another chapter. The Robin eats nearly 

 all of them ; therefore it is unnecessary here to speak fur- 

 ther of the vegetable food of this bird, except to mention 

 a few of its favorite fruits. Among these are : wild cher- 

 ries, wild grapes of several species, the berries of the sour 

 gum or tupelo, smilax, greenbrier, holly, all species of 

 sumac, poison ivy, elder, huckleberries, blueberries, black- 



