290 USEFUL BIRDS. 
per cent. of their food. In my experience, caterpillars and 
grubs form a very large percentage of their food, particu- 
larly cutworms. A goodly number of earthworms are fed 
in spring, when they are to be had in abundance; but cut- 
worms seem to be a favorite food at all times. Beetles 
(including curculios, snap beetles, and wireworms), grass- 
hoppers, crickets, Noctuid moths, spiders, snails, katydids, 
grass blades (probably picked up with insects), and a few 
seeds, are all found in the stomachs of the young. 
Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock watched the nest of a pair of 
Robins, and in three hours sixty-one earthworms, sixteen 
yellow grubs, thirty-eight other insects, four grasshoppers, 
and a few dragon flies and moths were carried to the. nest- 
lings. The last few days that they were in the nest, food 
was brought to them every three minutes. 
The earliest broods reared get practically no fruit, but the 
late broods are fed some fruit while in the nest, and after they 
leave the nest they live more largely on fruit than do the par- 
ent birds, probably because it is easier to find than insects, 
which the young birds are at first not skillful in capturing. 
The Robin thrives wherever there are gardens and orchards. 
In the prairie States, where there is little native fruit, it has 
become very destructive to cultivated small fruits, and even 
to apples; but in Massachusetts, where wild fruit is plenti- 
ful, its principal depredations may be mostly obviated by 
planting early mulberries or shadberries. The Robin de- 
serves the protection it now receives from the law. 
Bluebird. 
Sialia sialis. 
Length. — Six and one-half to seven inches. 
Adult Male.— Above, bright azure blue; breast and under parts bright chestnut, 
except the belly, which is white, or bluish-white. 
Adult Female.— Similar, but much duller or paler. 
Young.— Mostly brown, with blue on wings and tail; breast speckled with 
brownish and white. 
Nest.—In a hole in a tree, post, or in a bird house. 
Eggs.— Pale blue, rarely white. 
Season. — March to November; seen rarely in winter months. 
The Bluebird is perhaps first of all birds in the affections 
of the rural population of New England. Its gentle note, at 
