THE OOLOGIST 



85 



grasshoppers, crickets and plant lice 

 are eaten. Beal in the above men- 

 tioned report states that the Biological 

 Survey has examined 1083 stomachs of 

 the Red-wing, collected in every month 

 of the year. Stomach examinations do 

 not indicate a special fondness for 

 grain; weed seeds consists of more 

 than half of the yearly food, while 

 grain less than one-seventh; of fruit 

 almost none. He also states that more 

 weevils are eaten by the Red-wing 

 than by any other bird he has exam- 

 ined. 



Dr. C. M. Weed, quoting Miss Caro- 

 line G. Soule, says that the Red- 

 wings do especially good work in de- 

 stroying forest-tent caterpillar. They 

 damage my crops very little; some- 

 times in the fall migrating flocks will 

 alight in standing grain or on shocked 

 grain, but the stay is short and dam- 

 age slight. The pair reported on took 

 no grain that I observed, and the in- 

 sect food taken must have been al- 

 most wholly to my benefit, to say 

 nothing of the help they were in keep- 

 ing the Crows away from my corn- 

 field. Judging by the reported con- 

 tents of stomachs examined, the Red- 

 wing is a decidedly useful bird. 



LONG-BILLED MARSH WREN 

 Telmatodytes Palustris Palustris 



In northern New Jersey this species 

 is by far the most often found of the 

 two species of Marsh Wrens. It is 

 quite possible that this species is more 

 often met with by the average ob- 

 server, due to the fact that they are 

 not quite so seclusive as their short- 

 billed cousins. 



On the Newark and Hackensack 

 Meadows and to the head of tide- 

 water on the Hackensack is doubt- 

 less the best place for study o' the/i' 

 home life of any in this section. The 

 writer found his first nest in 1907 

 along Lawyer's Creek, about five feet 

 from the right of way of the Manu- 



facturer's Railway. This nest was 

 suspended between the stalks of a 

 clump of cattails, about three feet 

 above high tide. At the time of dis- 

 covery the nest contained seven red- 

 dish brown eggs, speckled with lighter 

 and darker shaded chocolate spots. 

 On the following day the clutch had 

 hatched, but one of the nestlings had 

 disappeared, and the nest only held 

 six young. On this same day six other 

 nests were found in a radius of one 

 hundred feet of the first discovery, all 

 of which held nestlings in various 

 stages of growth; some just hatched 

 and others almost ready for flight. 

 These last six were practically situ- 

 ated the same as the first, but the 

 heights varied from two feet to four 

 and a half above high water. 



In the next succeeding four years, 

 I was employed in a tannery about 500 

 feet from the site of the first nest 

 that was found in 1907, and during 

 the noon hours, when I could spare 

 the time during the nesting seasons of 

 these years, observations were made 

 almost every day, and after the young 

 had left the nest in these seasons 

 observations were made every two 

 or thi'ee days for a few minutes as to 

 their life while roving about in search 

 of sustenance. In 1914 the writer 

 spent the entire months of May and 

 June on the Newark Meadows, making 

 observations of the bird life there, and 

 particularly to study intensively the 

 breeding, nesting, incubation, feeding 

 of the young and life after leaving the 

 nest of the species in question. 



The first males were observed May 

 2nd, and on the following two days 

 numerous females put in an appear- 

 ance. These wandered about appar- 

 ently unmated until the 8th, when sev- 

 eral males were observed in the early 

 morning in unusually brilliant bursts 

 of melody endeavoring to attract the 

 ■ t out 01 OL the females, which were 

 about on all sides. Late in the after- 



