FOOD OF R0BH5TS AND BLUEBIRDS. 17 



This is a serious accusation. It is a common experience that where 

 a country is newly settled or new crops are introduced crops are liable 

 to attacks by birds, which appear to be attracted by the novelty of 

 the unknown food. However, as 15 years have elapsed since the 

 above letter was written, and as no corroborative report has since 

 been received, it is fair to infer that the damage that year was due 

 to unusual conditions. 



Food. — The varied thrush appears to be a pronounced ground 

 feeder, and the stomachs show an unusual quantity of such food as 

 thousand-legs, sow bugs, snails, and angleworms; but spiders are 

 rarely eaten. Only 58 stomachs of this thrush were available for 

 examination, and these were taken in the months from October to 

 April, inclusive. This leaves us in entire ignorance of the summer 

 food. Analysis shows 25.85 per cent animal food to 74.15 per cent 

 vegetable. 



Animal food. — Useful beetles, mostly predaceous ground-beetles, 

 amount to 1.87 per cent of the food. Beetles altogether aggregate 

 only 4.46 per cent. They belong to about a dozen of the most com- 

 mon families with no great preponderance of any. Ants comprise 

 4.08 per cent of the food, and other Hymenoptera (bees and wasps), 

 2.24 per cent. Hemiptera (bugs) amount to 1.09 per cent; Diptera 

 (flies), 1.47 per cent; Lepidoptera (caterpillars), 2.18 per cent; 

 Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets), to 1.99 per cent; and all 

 other insects, 1.18 per cent. None of these groups of insects attracted 

 the bird's special attention during the months in which these stom- 

 achs were collected. Spiders also fail to please, as they were found 

 only in the stomachs collected in two months and amount to only 

 0.10 per cent. Myriapods (thousand-legs) seem to be more highly 

 relished, as they are taken to the extent of 3.08 per cent. Earth- 

 worms, snails, and sow bugs collectively amount to 3.97 per cent, and 

 their presence in the stomachs explains why the bird so commonly 

 frequents dark, shady brooks and springs. The food of the varied 

 thrush thus widely differs from that of other members of the family 

 in the small proportion of insects in the diet and in the compara- 

 tively large percentage of mud-inhabiting creatures, as angleworms,, 

 snails, etc. 



The following beetles were the only insects that could be identified 

 except as to family : 



COLEOPTBRA. 

 Quedius capucinus 1 [ Aphodius sp 2 



Vegetable food. — The vegetable food of the varied thrush consists 

 of fruit, weed seed, and mast, with some unidentifiable matter. In 

 eating weed seed and mast the bird widely differs from other species 

 of the family. Cultivated fruit, mostly waste or left over, amounts 



