FOOD OF SOME WELL-KNOWN BIRDS. 19 



(ground beetles) and Cicindelidse (tiger beetles). The remainder, 

 11.55 per cent, are all either harmful or neutral. Hymenoptera (bees 

 and Avasps) are the largest item of animal food and amount to 31.38 

 per cent. They form a good percentage of the food in every month 

 except August, when they are partially' replaced by grasshoppers. 

 Honey bees (Apis mellifera) were found in 5 stomachs. In all there 

 were 31 bees, of which 29 were males, or drones, and 2 were workers. 

 This bird has been accused of eating honey bees to an injurious extent, 

 but this seems hardly borne out by stomach examination. Hemiptera 

 (bugs) amount to 5.36 per cent of the food. They belong to the 

 families of stink bugs, leaf bugs, cicadas, and shield bugs. Diptera 

 (flies) constitute 0.55 per cent of the diet. Evidently this flycatcher 

 does not catch many flies. Lepidoptera, in the shape of adult moths 

 and caterpillars, amount to 7.31 per cent and, when eaten at all, form 

 a good percentage of the food, but they are entirely absent from the 

 diet of several months. 



Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets) stand next to Hymenoptera 

 in the diet of the Arkansas kingbird, and form 27.76 per cent of the 

 year's food. August is naturally the month of greatest consumption, 

 when they amount to 61.58 per cent of the diet. It is a curious fact 

 that several western species of flycatchers — birds that feed mostly on 

 the wing — eat more grasshoppers than do those ground feeders, the 

 meadow lark, and blackbirds. The orthopterous food consists mostly 

 of grasshoppers, with very few crickets. Dragonflies and a few 

 other insects, millipeds, and spiders, the bones of tree frogs in 3 

 stomachs, and eggshells, apparently of domestic fowl, make up the 

 remainder of the animal food, 1.23 per cent. 



Vegetable food. — Vegetable food amounts to 9.39 per cent, but pre- 

 sents very little veriety. Only 4 fruits and a few seeds were found. 

 Seeds and skins of elderberries (Samhucus) were found in 11 stom- 

 achs, woodbine (Psedera) in 2, hawthorn (Cratcegus) in 1, and an 

 olive in 1, with skins and pulp not further identified in 2. 



Summary. — The vegetable food of the Arkansas kingbird is of 

 slight economic interest. Its only animal food that is open to criti- 

 cism is the useful beetles, but these are more than counterbalanced by 

 the harmful insects eaten. — F. E. L. B. 



ASH-THRpATED FLYCATCHER. 



{Alyiarchus cinerascenfi. ) 



The ash-throated flycatcher (fig. 8) occupies the western part of 

 the United States from the Pacific Ocean as far east as Texas and 

 Colorado and as far north as "Washington. Like the kingbirds, it 

 is a bird of the open parklike country and is particularly partial 

 to the vicinity of abandoned ranches, in whose buildings it is pleased 



506 



