290 FIELD ZOOLOGY. 



stomach of an adult bird often has a Hning of these hairs. 

 The yellow-billed cuckoo is called the rain crow. Their 

 nestlings are fed on smooth caterpillars at first, the hairy 

 ones being added later. 



Towhee nestlings are fed on long-horned beetles, 

 weevils, crickets, grasshoppers, spiders, and snails. 



Grosbeak nestlings are fed exclusively on insects. 

 One nest observed by Mr. Judd was built in a potato field, 

 and the nestlings were fed the larvae and pupae of the 

 beetles, and later the beetles themselves. 



Sparrows, as a Family. — Taking it by the large, are 

 granivorous or seed-eating, as to the adults, to two- 

 thirds of their diet; but their nestlings are insectivorous, 

 eating, as long as they are nestlings, such things as grass- 

 hoppers, army worms, bugs, weevils, beetles, cutworms, 

 crickets, earthworms, cabbage worms, and snails. 



It may be said of the sparrows and the towhees, both 

 of which feed snails to their nestlings, that this is a service 

 not to be despised if sheep-raising is carried on in the 

 region where these birds nest. The snail has been found 

 to be the intermediate host for the river fluke, that pest 

 of sheep farmers. 



English Sparrow. — The adults are insectivorous to 

 only about one-tenth of their diet, according to Mr. 

 Judd's investigations; yet, in the cases that have come 

 under the author's notice, this foreigner is gradually 

 becoming more of an insect eater. Each spring and 

 summer, for the last three years, these birds have been 

 watched eating cutworms. The nestlings, and here is 

 the interesting part of it, are insectivorous to fifty per 

 cent of their diet, being fed grasshoppers, spiders, cater- 

 pillars, weevils, cabbage worms, white grubs, and cut- 

 worms. 



