1912.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 355 
Hopes, C. F. [Food of Young Ruffed Grouse.) Rep. Comm. 
Fisheries and Game, Mass., 1907 (1908), p. 70. 
Two died from swallowing objects too large to pass into gizzard 
(black cricket and large spider). This certainly was not the 
cause of death. A young ruffed grouse’s digestive apparatus 
would quickly dispose of two such soft-bodied insects. 
Hopaee, C.F. [Report ... . relative to the Propagation of Ruffed 
Grouse and Quail in Confinement.] Rep. Comm. Fisheries and 
Game, Mass., 1908 (1909), pp. 60-69. 
On pp. 60 and 61, Hodge says: ‘I encountered a new difficulty 
against which we must be on our guard in the future. Striped 
plant bugs were abundant on the grass, and were easily obtained 
by sweeping with insect nets. The young chicks [of ruffed 
grouse] ate them greedily, and simply went to sleep and died as 
if they had been chloroformed. These bugs had the strong 
odor of squash bugs, by feeding which to toads Conradi found 
eee they died as though they had been poisoned with chloro- 
orm.”’ 
“‘Conradi found that five or six squash bugs might be sufficient 
to kill a toad, and Miss Morse has fed as many as eleven to a 
bobwhite at a single meal. Plant bugs are not so strong as 
squash bugs, and I have observed a toad eat over 250 of them in 
a day without showing ill effects. Still, while this evidence is 
not conclusive, . . . . I think that we should be more careful in 
future not to feed too many strong-smelling bugs to young 
grouse chicks.” 
Dr. Hodge’s experience with the young grouse, and the bluebird, 
above noted, being killed by eating certain insects, is unsupported 
by other testimony, and the observations leading to his con- 
clusions are not scientifically exact. 
The reference to Conradi’s experiments is incorrect. The toads 
when confined in small bottles were killed by the vaporized 
secretions of squash bugs; they were not killed by eating the 
bugs. The feeding of bobwhites is described on pp. 64-67. He 
justly remarks: ‘‘The most careful artificial feeding of a flock in 
confinement cannot approach in variety the food of wild birds” 
(p. 64). Reports of the Massachusetts Commissioners on 
Fisheries and Game for other years contain notes on the feeding 
of game birds in captivity, but not in relation to “protected” 
insects. 
Hystop, J. A. The False Wireworms of the Pacific Northwest. 
Bul. 95, U. 8. Bur. Ent., Part V, 1912. 
In the discussion of natural enemies (p. 84) are reports on experi- 
mental feedings of adult Eleodes chiefly to various gallinaceous 
birds. Chickens, ducks, the Reeves pheasant, and silver pheas- 
ant ate the beetles, while turkeys refused them, and golden and 
Lady Amherst pheasants would not notice them. The author 
says, “However, these birds seemed quite annoyed by our 
presence and might have eaten the beetles had they not been 
frightened.”’ 
