28 



FOOD OF SOME WELL-KNOWN BIEDS. 



Grain amounts to 8 per cent of the food. Oats, Avheat, barley, and 

 corn were identified. None of it was talcen in a harvest month, 

 thougli some may have been collected from newly sown fields in 

 spring. The principal item of the junco's food, however, is weed 

 seed. This amounts to 61.8 per cent, is eaten in every month, and in 

 September amounts to 95 per cent. 



Summary. — The insect food of the junco is composed almost 

 entirely of harmful species, of which caterpillars form the largest 

 item. Juncos do no damage to fruit or grain. They eat large 

 quantities of weed seed, thereby rendering service to agriculture. 



They should be 

 rigidly protected. — 

 F. E. L. B. 



WHITE - CROWNED 

 SPARROW. 



(Zonotrichia leuco- 

 s.) 



Pig. 13. — White-crowned sparrow. 



The white- 

 crowned sparrow 

 (fig. 13) in one or 

 other of its three 

 subspecies, is found 

 in winter over most 

 of the southern 

 and central United 

 States west of 

 Ohio, and casually 

 or in migration 

 considerably far- 

 ther east. It 

 breeds far to the 

 north or well up 

 in the mountains. 



These sparrows frequent valleys, brushy hillsides, highways, and 

 cultivated fields. Something more than 600 stomachs of the three 

 forms have been examined, but the summer months ate sparsely 

 represented. The first analysis of the contents gives 7.4 per cent of 

 animal food to 92.6 per cent of vegetable. 



Animal food. — Beetles, practically all of harmful species, amount 

 to 1.4 per cent of the food. In June they reach nearly 8 per 

 cent, but in the other months are insignificant. Hymenoptera 

 amount to 1.9 per cent, reaching over 16 per cent in June, but in 



506 



