20 
but 26 per cent. A little more than 10 per cent consists of beetles, 
mostly harmful species. Weevils, or snout beetles, amount to 4 per 
cent of the year’s food, but in June reach 25 per cent. As weevils are 
among the most harmful insects known, their destruction should con- 
done for at least some of the sins of which the bird has been accused. 
Grasshoppers constitute nearly 5 per cent of the food, while the rest of 
the animal matter is made up of various insects, a few snails, and crus- 
taceans. Several dragon flies were found, but these were probably 
picked up dead, for they are too active to be taken alive, unless by one 
of the flycatchers. So far as the insect food as a whole is concerned, 
the redwing may be considered entirely beneficial. 
The interest in the vegetable food of this bird centers around the 
Fig. 10.—-Redwinged blackbird. 
grain. Only three kinds, corn, wheat, and oats, were found in appre 
ciable quantities in the stomachs, and they aggregate but little more 
than 13 per cent of the whole food, oats forming nearly half of this 
amount. In view of the many complaints that the redwing eats grain, 
this record is surprisingly small. The crow blackbird has been found to 
eat more than three times as much. In the case of the crow, corn forms 
yne-fifth of the food, so that the redwinged blackbird, whose diet is made 
up of only a trifle more than one-eighth of grain, is really one of the 
least destructive species; but the most important item of this bird’s 
food is weed seed, which forms practically the whole food in winter and 
about 57 per cent of the whole year’s fare. The principal weed seeds 
