VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN. 61 
of cankerworms varying from seventy to one hundred and 
one each, the number found in most cases averaging nearly 
one hundred for each bird. 
A Ruffed Grouse, killed in winter, had in its crop twelve 
leaves of sheep laurel and four hundred and thirty-five buds 
and bits of branches, all taken for its morning meal. The 
crop of another contained over five hundred buds and twigs. 
As these birds eat such food both at morning and at night, it 
would seem that they must require daily, for these two meals 
alone, between eight hundred and one thousand buds and 
twigs.1 
The following notes, received from Professor Beal since 
the above was written, are of great interest : — 
From the stomach of a Franklin's Gull (Larus franklinit) there were 
taken seventy entire grasshoppers and the jaws of fifty-six more; from 
another, ninety grasshoppers and one hundred and two additional jaws ; 
from another, forty-eight grasshoppers and seventy more jaws ; and still 
another contained sixty-seven grasshoppers. Another stomach of this 
species contained sixty-eight crickets. These grasshoppers and crickets 
were each more than one inch in length. We examined the stomach 
of a Franklin’s Gull which contained three hundred and twenty-seven 
entire nymphs of dragon flies, each three-fourths of an inch in length. 
In the stomach of a Cliff Swallow were found one hundred entire 
beetles (Aphodius inquinatus), with remains of others. These insects 
are a little more than three-eighths of an inch in length. We are now 
examining birds’ stomachs from Texas, and from the stomach of a Yel- 
low-billed Cuckoo were taken the remains of eighty-two caterpillars 
that originally were from one to one and a half inches in length. From 
another stomach were taken eighty-six, and from forty to sixty from 
several others. 
All evidence acquired by observation as to the amount of 
food eaten by wild birds at liberty must perforce be frag- 
mentary, for such observation is necessarily limited to brief 
periods. The difficulties attending such work make its re- 
sults somewhat uncertain and unsatisfactory ; nevertheless, 
some information as to the quantity of food eaten by wild 
birds may be obtained in this way. Vultures are said to so 
gorge themselves that they are unable to fly. Ihave known 
3 Birds in their Relation to Man, by Clarence M. Weed and Ned Dearborn, 
1903, p. 62. 
