24 GCUCKOOS AND SHRIKES IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. 
FOOD OF NESTLING LOGGERHEAD SHRIKES. 
A female parent and 6 half-grown young were collected for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining whether, as is commonly believed, young shrikes 
are fed upon song birds. Three-fourths of the contents of each of 
these stomachs were insects, mainly grasshoppers. Parts of a meadow 
mouse had been fed to 2 of the nestlings. Mr. F. H. King, who has 
made extended studies on the food of birds, cites an instance of a 
shrike of this species carrying a warbler to its young, but Mr. Ernest 
Seton Thompson, who has recently examined the stomachs of 4 fledg- 
lings, found no birds, but many beetles, grasshoppers, and_ bristly 
caterpillars. The caterpillars belonged to the family Arctiide, and 
were covered with spines. It is very important that the few birds 
which will eat such caterpillars should be rigorously protected. 
SUMMARY. 
The food of the butcherbird and loggerhead, as shown by 155 stom- 
achs collected during every month in the year, and in an area extend- 
ing from California to the Atlantic coast, and from Saskatchewan to 
Florida, consists of invertebrates (mainly grasshoppers), birds, and 
mice. During the colder half of the year the butcherbird eats birds 
and mice to the extent of 60 percent and ekes out the rest of its food 
with insects. In the loggerhead’s food birds and mice amount to only 
24 percent. It will readily be seen from the table on page 26 that the 
loggerhead’s beneficial qualities outweigh 4 to 1 its injurious ones. 
Instead of being persecuted it should receive protection. 
LIST OF INVERTEBRATES DESTROYED BY THE BUTCILERBIRD, 
Orthoptera: 
Grasshoppers (-Acridiida) j 
Crickets (Gryllide). 
Coleoptera: 
Ground beetles (Carabide). 
Tiger beetles (Cicindelidw). 
Darkling beetles (Tenebrionida). 
Diptera: 
Flies. 
TTymenoptera: 
Ants (Formicidw), 
Wasps. 
Lepidoptera: 
Cut worms (Noctuida). 
Bristly caterpillars (Arctiidae), 
Arachnida: 
Spiders. 
Myriapoda: 
Thousand-logs (Jules), 
Crustacea: 
Sand fleas (Amphipoda). 
Melanoplus, 
Tettir. 
