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ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK (Zamelodia 

 ludoviciana). 



Length, 8 inches. 



Range: Breeds from Kansas, Ohio, Georgia 

 (mountains), and New Jersey, north to southern 

 Canada; winters from Mexico to South America. 



Habits and economic status: This beautiful 

 grosbeak is noted for its clear, melodious notes, 

 which are poured forth in generous measure. 

 The rosebreast sings even at midday during 

 summer, when the intense heat has silenced 

 almost every other songster. Its beautiful 

 plumage and sweet song are not its sole claim 

 on our favor, for few birds are more beneficial 

 to agriculture. The rosebreast eats some green 

 peas and does some damage to fruit. But this 

 mischief is much more than balanced by the 

 destruction of insect pests. The bird is so fond 

 of the Colorado potato beetle that it has earned 

 the name of "potato-bug bird," and no less 

 than a tenth of the total tood of the rosebreasts 

 examined consists of potato beetles — eAddence 



that the bird is one of the most important enemies of the pest. It vigorously 

 attacks cucumber beetles and many of the scale insects. It proved an active 

 enemy of the Rocky Mountain locust during that insect's ruinous invasions, and 

 among the other pests it consumes are the spring and fall cankerworms, orchard 

 and forest tent caterpillars, tussock, gipsy, and brown-tail moths, plum curculio, 

 army worm, and chinch bug. In fact, not one of out birds has a better record. 

 (See Biol. Survey Bui. 32, pp. 33-59.) 



SONG SPARROW (Melospiza melodia). 



Length, about 6^ inches. The heavily spotted breast with heavy central 

 blotch is characteristic. 



Range: Breeds in the United States (except the South Atlantic and Gulf 

 States), southern Canada, southern Alaska, and Mexico; winters in Alaska and 

 most of the United States southward. 



Habits and economic status: Like the familiar little "chippy," the song 

 sparrow is one of our most domestic species, and builds its nest in hedges or in 

 garden shrubbery close to houses, whenever it is reasonably safe from the house 

 cat, which, however, takes heax'y toll of the 

 nestlings. It is a true harbinger of spring, and 

 its delightful little song is trilled forth from the 

 top of some green shrub in early March and 

 April , before most of our other songsters have 

 thought of lea\'ing the sunny south. Song 

 sparrows vary much in habits, as well as in size 

 and coloration. Some forms live along streams 

 bordered by deserts, others in swamps ainong 

 bulrushes and tules, others in timbered regions, 

 others on rocky barren hillsides, and still others 

 in rich, fertile valleys. With such a variety of 

 habitat, the food of the species naturally varies 

 considerably. About three-fourths of its diet 

 consists of the seeds of noxious weeds and one- 

 fourth of insects. Of these, beetles, especially 

 weevils, constitute the major portion. Ants, 

 wasps, bugs (including the black olive scale), 

 and caterpillars are also eaten. Grasshoppers 

 are taken by the eastern birds, but not by 

 the western ones. (See Biol. Survey Bui. 15, 

 pp. 82-86.) 



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