BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 305 
State in one year. It is a persistent destroyer of the grubs 
that mine the leaves of beets. I watched one bird secure 
eleven of these grubs in a few minutes. It feeds on the eggs 
of the parsley butterfly (Papilio polyxenes), and also takes 
young larve of this species and other insects from the leaves 
of celery, lettuce, and other small truck. I have no doubt 
that an investigation of the food of this bird in the garden 
would show it to be of great value to the market gardener. 
It likes to feed on cultivated ground, in the shade of the 
green leaves of vegetables. It creeps about noiselessly up 
and down the rows, an unseen and unnoticed influence for 
good. Injurious beetles, bugs, leaf hoppers, grasshoppers, 
and ants are taken freely. 
Its vegetable food is of less importance than its animal food. 
It eats wild cherries, and Professor Beal says that he has 
seen it take a few cultivated cherries. Only four per cent. 
of the seeds eaten are grain, principally oats. Chickweed 
seed is commonly eaten, and some seeds of clover, ragweed, 
amaranth, wood sorrel, lamb’s quarters, purslane, knotweed, 
and black bindweed ; forty-eight per cent. of the seed eaten 
is grass seed, of which twenty-six per cent. is crab grass 
and pigeon grass, —two common weeds. The seeds of crab 
grass form the most important part of the vegetable diet 
whenever they can be obtained, for then the birds fill them- 
selves with those only. Many Sparrows eat seeds whenever 
they are obtainable, even in summer, when insects are plenti- 
ful. The seeds of the dandelion are among the earliest that 
the Chipping Sparrow finds in summer. It frequently seeks 
the seeds of this plant on lawns. It takes them one by one 
from the opening heads, and spends so much time in this 
manner that it must consume a great deal of this seed. In 
August it sometimes visits oat stubble, where it picks up 
fallen grain. 
Dr. Judd found that, on the one side, only one per cent. 
of the food eaten was composed of useful insects, while more 
than twenty-five per cent. consisted of insect pests; and, on 
the other side, grain composed four per cent. and weed seeds 
forty per cent. of the food. These figures clearly show the 
good service rendered to man by the Chipping Sparrow. 
