TITK 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER, 1880, 



No. 10. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 



THE HUB PUBLISHING CO. of n. y. 



828 Pearl St., New York. 



TERMS Two dollars per annum, in advance. 



EDITOR : 

 CHAS. V. RILEY, Washington, D. C. 



THE POOD OP THE BLUEBIRD (SiaUa sialis, L.). 



BY PROF. S. A. FORBES, NORMAL, ILL. 



{Concluded from p. i\Z!\ 

 JULY. 



The nine birds of this month were all 

 shot in central Illinois, during four succes- 

 sive years. Besides the return of the per- 

 centages of Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Lep- 

 idoptera and Arachnida fo about their 

 usual figure, we notice the large ratios of 

 June-beetles (12 per cent.) and Orthoptera 

 (27 per cent.). Thelatter includes 7 percent, 

 of Udeopsylla nigra, a large cricket-like 

 locust. We find also a trace of raspberries 

 in the food of two individuals. The cater- 

 pillars eaten by these birds were unrecog- 

 nizable, except those from a single stom- 

 ach, which Prof. Riley has identified as 

 Nephelodes violans, Guen. The record of 

 benefit and injury is now more favorable 

 to the species — 67 per cent, of injurious in- 

 sects, and only 14 per cent, beneficial, — 

 the latter Carabidce and spiders. 



SEPTEMBER. 



No birds have yet been studied for 

 August, and but two for the following 

 month. Nearly the whole food of these 

 two birds was composed of moths, cater- 

 pillars and grasshoppers. The number is 



too small to signify much, and this month 

 has been omitted in calculating the aver- 

 ages for the year. 



DECEMBER. 



To learn the food of the Bluebird in 

 midwinter, I went to extreme Southern 

 Illinois in December, 1879, and shot a 

 number of specimens, some from the heavy 

 forests in the bottoms of the Ohio river, 

 and others from the wooded and cultivated 

 highlands in Pulaski county. The weather 

 at this time was sometimes above and 

 sometimes below freezing, and bluebirds 

 were abundant and very much at home. 

 The principal food of the twelve specimens 

 examined consisted chiefly of various wild 

 fruits, (84 per cent.) of which the ber- 

 ries of the mistletoe {Fhoradejidron flaves- 

 cens) were the most abundant (58 per cent). 

 Grapes, the berries of sumach, scarlet 

 thorn, {C^-atcegus) and holly {Ilex decidiid) 

 were also found. Sixteen per cent, of the 

 food was insects, of which the larger part 

 (10 per cent.) was the larvae of Harpalincc, — 

 eaten, however, by but two of the birds. 

 Prominent among these was the larva fig- 

 ured and described by Prof. Riley in the 

 Report of the U. S. Entomological Com- 

 mission for 1877, p. 290, and there doubt- 

 fully referred to Harpalus herbivagus. The 

 remaining kinds were Geotrupcs black- 

 burnii, Podisus spinosus, a single spider, 

 and one unknown caterpillar. Even in the 

 dead of winter, therefore, this bird does 

 not cease its warfare on our predaceous 

 bugs and beetles. 



SUMMARY FOR THE YEAR. 



To these figures, giving the averages for 



