362 DIVISION I. VERTEBRAL ANIMALS. — CLASS 11. AVES. 



In July we founil tliat it is less beneficial than injin-ious. It is now that 

 many of the small fruits are ripe, and the young birds are out of tlie nest, 

 and subsisting, in a great measure, upon these for a diet. We found, from 

 many localities, that the food consists, in all ages, on the average, of the 

 following parts : cherries, four tenths ; earth-worms, two tentiis ; caterpil- 

 lars and grubs, two tenths ; berries, two tenths. But it is to be remem- 

 bered that in tliis month a second brood of young robins is often hatched, 

 which is fed for a long time, certainly a fortniglit, almost exclusively upon 

 insect food, and the old birds tlierefore cannot be considered as injurious to 

 the degree above-mentioned. For the sake of fairness then, we will con- 

 sider that in July the robin is beneficial nine, injuricnis eighteen, and neutral 

 four days. Through the balance of the year the food exhibits the greatest 

 variety, but a liberal margin will allow the bird to be beneficial forty-eight 

 days, injurious twenty-eight, and neutral seventy-six days. 



In a general summary of the above brief analysis, we find that the robin is 

 beneficial one hundred and forty-two days, injurious sixty days, and neutral 

 about one hundred and sixty-three days. 



It has been said against the robin, that although it feeds its young upon 

 insects, the greater proportion of its food consists of earth-worms, which are, 

 in a measure, Ijeneficial. But this accusation is hardly justified by fact, for 

 in June and July, when the young birds are fed by the parents, the surfiice 

 of the soil has become so dry tliat earth-worms arc down decj) in the moist 

 earth, beyond the reach of the bird, and cut-worms and other terrestrial 

 larva? are really the insects captured. We have had several opportunities 

 for noticing this fact. A pair of robins, which had nested in an elm tree 

 near the house in which we were residing, paid constant visits to a lawn near 

 by. At all times of the day one or the other of the birds was on the 

 ground, sometimes both together. They hunted their food in the manner 

 peculiar to their race, hopping a few steps, then pausing to scan the ground, 

 and discover the lurking-place of the grubs, their food. The instinct with 

 which they ascertained the presence of the larvx was wonderful, and we 

 never could detect the signs that guided them. 



In the midst of their hopping run they would stop instantly, or turn 

 abruptly from their course, and, with a quick peck, sometimes several 

 scratching strokes of the bill, remove the grass and earth, seize the grub, 

 and bear it away to their nestlings. On no occasion did we see the birds 

 remove the soil from above the cut-worms l)y scratching with their feet, 

 although they often dug down to the depth of perhaps an inch with their 

 beaks. This pair of birds destroyed, by actual count, twenty-four and 

 twenty-seven grubs (cait-worms) in the lapse of one hour; and on another 

 occasion, twenty-sL\ and thirty of these insects in the same period. All 



