Ill 



From the time of the early settlers, when it was obligatory to 

 kill a certain number annually or pay a fine (Allen, 1876), to 

 the time when Beal (1900) completed his examination of over 

 a thousand stomachs, its food and feeding habits have been 

 dwelt upon at length. The more important discussions of the 

 food of the Redwing will be found in the following references : 



Wilson, A., 1831. Warren, B. H., 1890. 



Audubon, J. J., 1831. Shriner, C. A., 1896. 



Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Wayne, A. J., 1899. 



1874. Beal, F. E. L., 1900. 



Allen, J. A., 1876. Forbush, E. H., 1907. 



Goss, N. S., 1883. Peet, M. M., 1908. 



For the most part these observations have been made, and 

 the results summarized, from an economic standpoint. An 

 ecological summary would impose an extremely difficult and 

 unsatisfactory task, if one were to attempt to include every- 

 thing that has been written. From such a standpoint, food 

 studies are valuable only when correlated with the various 

 phases in the life history of the bird. Intensive studies are 

 therefore more suggestive than extensive ones, because each 

 change in food is thus brought into close relation with the 

 synchronous phase of the life history. It is for this reason 

 that during the three seasons of work over one hundred birds 

 have been collected and the food content of their stomachs 

 tabulated. 



A summary of Beal's studies shows that '^The food of the 

 year was found to consist of 73.4 per cent of vegetable matter 

 and 26.6 per cent of animal. The animal food begins with 1.4 

 per cent in January and gradually increases to 88.2 per cent 

 in June, after which it regularly decreases to a fraction of 1 

 per cent in November. With the exception of a few snails 

 and crustaceans, it consists entirely of insects and their allies 

 (spiders and myriapods), so that, roughly speaking, insects 

 constitute one fourth of the year's food. They consist prin- 

 cipally of beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, with a few 

 wasps, ants, ffies, bugs, and dragon-flies. . . . The vegetable 

 food of the redwings consists mainly of seeds of grasses and 



