ee Recent Literature. 421 
animal food, and among these beetles strong scented Carabide were 
found oftener than any others.” Here is certainly ‘ food for reflection!’ 
Mr. Judd, in this excellent paper, not only treats of the food of the 
Catbird, but gives an exposition of the methods employed in his investiga- 
tions, where observations on the habits of the wild birds in the field are 
supplemented by experimentation with captive birds as to their food 
preferences, and by stomach examinations to ascertain what wild birds 
have actually eaten. The results of Mr. Judd’s investigations are highly 
favorable to the much maligned Catbird. While it has a partiality for 
fruits, experiment shows that it prefers mulberries to strawberries and 
cherries, and that these latter were never touched when mulberries were 
at hand. Also that the Catbird prefers red mulberries to white mulberries. 
It is further inferred that cherries and strawberries can be protected from 
the depredations of the Catbird by planting mulberries. 
Mr. F. E. L. Beal writes of ‘The Blue Jay and its Food,’ !and states that 
“the examination of nearly 300 stomachs shows that the Blue Jay certainly 
does far more good than harm.” It destroys ‘‘some grasshoppers and 
caterpillars and many noxious beetles,” and “gathers its fruits from 
nature’s orchard and vineyard, not from man’s; corn is the only vegetable 
food for which the farmer suffers any loss, and here the damage is small.”’ 
Mr. Beal’s examinations of the Blue Jay’s stomachs leads him to an 
optimistic view of his nest-robbing proclivities, which do not sustain 
“the accusations of eating eggs and young birds.” The charges have no 
doubt been exaggerated, for no reasonable observer would assert that 
“egos and young birds constitute the chief food of the Blue Jay during 
the breeding season.” It is not perhaps strange that only a few of the 
birds examined were taken ‘ red-handed.’ 
Mr. Beal is also author of ‘Some Common Birds in Their Relation to 
Agriculture,’ issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture as ‘ Farmer’s 
Bulletin No. 54 (pp. 40, May, 1897), which “contains brief abstracts of 
the results of food studies of about thirty grain and insect-eating birds, 
belonging to 10 different families.” These are the Cuckoos, Woodpeckers, 
Kingbird, Phcebe, Blue Jay, Crow, Bobolink, Red-winged Blackbird, 
Meadowlark, Baltimore Oriole. Crow Blackbird, Sparrows, Rose-breasted 
Grosbeak, Swallows, Cedarbird, Catbird, Brown Thrasher, House Wren, 
Robin, and Bluebird. Many of these abstracts are based on reports 
previously published by the United States Department of Agriculture in 
special ‘Bulletins’ or in its ‘Yearbooks,’ but others appear to be advance 
statements of results reached in investigations, the details of which have 
not yet been published. About a page of text is given to each species, 
which suffices for a clear summary of its status in relation to agriculture, 
based on scientific investigation of its food habits under the direction of 
the chief of the Biological Survey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 
! Yearbook of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 1896 (1897), pp. 197- 
206. 
