THE BIKDS OF NEW JERSEY. 127 



blue, and one and one-tenth by four fifths of an inch in 

 size. There are two broods each year. 



The Robin breeds in Eastern North America and in the 

 upper parts of the Southern States; it is found in the 

 United States east of the Eocky Mountains, in eastern 

 Mexico and in Alaska. It winters mainly in the southern 

 part of the Middle States. The birds arrive in New Jer- 

 sey about the middle of March and leave here shortly 

 after the first of November; some, however, remain here 

 ah 1 winter. 



Its song is a loud, clear, musical warble. Its call 

 note, with which it frequently warns other birds of ap- 

 proaching danger, sounds like the word quick. 



About one-half of the food of the Robin is composed of 

 insects, principally March flies, with a good percentage of 

 grasshoppers, bugs, spiders, wasps, ants, and canker 

 worms. The fruit it devours is principally wild, it hav- 

 ing been estimated that only five per cent, of the fruit it 

 eats is grown by man. Professor Forbes asks this ques- 

 tion: "Will the destruction of seventeen quarts of aver- 

 erage caterpillars, including at least eight quarts of cut 

 worms, pay for twenty -four quarts of cherries, blackber- 

 ries, currants and grapes?" Mr. Brunner says; "He is a 

 poor business man who pays $10 for that which he knows 

 must later be sold for fifteen cents or less. Yet I have 

 known of instances where a Robin that had saved from 

 ten to fifteen bushels of apples that were worth a dollar a 

 bushel, by clearing the trees from canker worms in the 

 spring, was shot when he simply pecked one of the apples 

 that he had saved for the grateful or ungrateful fruit- 

 grower." 



Robin, Golden. See Baltimore Oriole. 

 Robin, Ground. See Che wink. 

 Robin, Swamp. See Chewink. 



