20 ROBIN 



in a tract of reeds. 1 In ordinary win- 

 ters they probably remain till spring, he 

 thinks, but when severe weather comes 

 presumably go on to roosts still farther 

 south. 



As the Robin is particularly fond of 

 wild fruit, he can winter comfortably 

 wherever wild berries still cling to the 

 bushes. This diet seems to agree with 

 him, though nearly half his food for the 

 year is animal. He not only eats wasps, 

 bugs, spiders, angle-worms, and a large 

 number of grasshoppers, crickets, and 

 caterpillars, but destroys the March fly 

 larvae that injure the grass in the hay- 

 field. He also ate the army worm that 

 invaded the country in 1896 (Fig. 6). 

 The Eobin has been accused of taking 

 cultivated fruit, but examinations show 

 that less than 5 per cent, of his food is 

 grown by man. As Professor Bruner, 

 the author of ' Birds of Nebraska,' and 

 one of the close students of bird econ- 

 omy, pertinently remarks : " He is a 

 poor business man who pays ten dollars 

 for that which he knows must later be 

 sold for fifteen cents or even less. Yet 

 I have known of instances where a 

 Robin that had saved from ten to fif- 



1 The Auk, vol. xii. No. i. p. 1. 



