54 USEFUL BIRDS. 
of the parent birds were filled with a mass of small insects, 
mainly ants and plant lice, to which were added a few spiders. 
These young were also fully fledged.? 
The number of young in the nests of the smaller perch- 
ing birds is usually from three to five. In the case of the 
Chickadees mentioned above there were seven, and in another 
case that I have recently observed there were nine. Chick- 
adees and Wrens, because of their insectivorous habits and 
the large broods they rear, probably reach the maximum in 
the number of insects brought to their young. 
Dr. Judd gives an account of the feeding of some young 
House Wrens by the mother birdalone. These young Wrens 
were about three-fourths grown, and were visited one hun- 
dred and ten times in four hours and thirty-seven minutes. 
They were fed, during this time, one hundred and eleven 
insects and spiders. Among these were identified one white 
grub, one soldier bug, three millers (Noctuidw), nine spiders, 
nine grasshoppers, fifteen May flies, and thirty-four cater- 
pillars. On the following day, in three hours and five min- 
utes, the young were fed sixty-seven times.” 
Professor Aughey states that during a locust year in 
Nebraska he saw a pair of Long-billed Marsh Wrens take 
thirty-one small locusts to their nest inan hour. It is inter- 
esting to note that a pair of Rock Wrens that he watched 
took just thirty-two locusts to their nest in another hour.? 
Another observer is reported by Dr. Barton to have seen 
a pair of Wrens coming from their box and returning with 
insects from forty to sixty times an hour. In an exceptional 
hour they carried food seventy-one times. He estimates 
that at that time they took from the garden six hundred 
insects per day.* 
Few people, unfortunately, who are qualified for the task, 
1 Two Years with the Birds on a Farm. Annual report of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Agriculture, 1902, p. 129. 
2 The Birds of a Maryland Farm, by Sylvester D. Judd. Bulletin No. 17, 
United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Biological Suryey,. 
pp. 45, 46. is 
® Notes on the Nature of the Food of Nebraska Birds, by S. A. Aughey. First 
Report of the United States Entomological Commission, 1877, Appendix, p. 18. 
‘ Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, by Dr. B. S. Barton, 
Part I, 1799, p. 22. 
