THe CrANE-FLIES oF NEw York —Part I T77 
seems very abundant, both in number of species and in number of 
individuals, and the larvae are exceedingly numerous. 
The Biological Survey has kept a very careful record of the food of 
birds and other vertebrates, based on the examination of stomach con- 
tents, and thru the kindness of Messrs. W. L. McAtee and E. R. 
Kalmbach the writer has obtained a record of the species known to feed 
on crane-flies. Over a hundred species of birds, representing almost. all 
the bird families, have been found to feed on the adult flies. The more 
notable and general of these birds are sandpipers, flycatchers, vireos, 
swallows, wood warblers, and thrushes. The species feeding on the larvae 
consist for the most part of ducks, shore birds, and thrushes. Dr. Alice 
A. Noyes has found in the stomach of a Wilson’s snipe twenty-three 
head capsules of a small Tipula (possibly T. dejecta Walker), showing 
the importance of the larvae as food at certain seasons. Similarly the 
food of toads (Bufo) and of frogs (Rana) often includes an abundance 
of larval and adult crane-flies (Needham, 1905). 
The larvae of crane-flies are very tempting to many species of fishes. 
' Certain of the larger larvae, such as those of Tipula abdominalis and 
Eriocera spinosa, furnish one of the best of baits for black bass and other 
game fish, being even more tempting in many cases than the better-known 
dobson (Corydalis). The skin of these larvae is very tough and leathery, 
hence their common name leather-jacket. The fishhook is run thru the 
body of the larva at about midlength, leaving the two ends wriggling. 
Studies made by Needham (1908:172-188) on the food of the bullhead, 
the sunfish, and the red-bellied minnow, showed that crane-flies were 
not eaten by these species, and the same is true of the brook trout in 
ponds (Needham, 1903a). But the habitat of the larvae is not in the 
haunts of these fishes. They live in the leaf drift caught in the eddies, 
in the mud and gravel at the sides and the bottom of the stream, and 
in similar situations which are not readily accessible to the fish. It seems 
probable that it is due to the fact that the larvae furnish such choice 
titbits, that they cannot exist in the same haunts with the fish. Some 
species, as those of Eriocera, live in the chutes of the Mississippi River, 
and they are the only crane-flies known from such a habitat. The remains 
of ‘crane-flies, such as wings, legs, and heads, are often found in fish 
stomachs, these being from adult flies that have fallen into the water 
and been snapped up by the fish. 
