INTRODUCTION. 9 
The latter consists mostly of insects,1 with the addition in a few species 
of some crustaceans and snails and now and then a small vertebrate. 
The vegetable food comprises chiefly hard seeds, of which any grain 
may be taken asa sample. Fruit is eaten by a few species, but not to 
an injurious extent, and various other vegetable substances are occa- 
sionally taken, such as bits of fleshy tubers or roots, mast, mush- 
rooms, etc. 
If the blackbirds were to be rated in the order of their grain-eating 
propensities as shown by stomach examinations, putting those that eat 
least at the head of the list, they would stand about as follows: Bobo- 
link, redwing, cowbird, rusty blackbird, yellowhead, crow blackbird, 
boat-tailed grackle, Brewer’s blackbird, and California redwing. It 
is a singular fact that the first two are the ones against which the 
greatest complaint has been made, thus showing that some factors 
beside the amount of grain actually eaten by the individual must be 
taken into account in determining the relative harmfulness of the 
species. In the case of the bobolink, however, it should be explained 
that the stomachs upon which the record is founded were nearly all 
taken in the North, and do not exhibit the bird’s rice-eating propensi- 
ties. Still it is probable that if a proportionate number of stomachs 
from Southern States were included in the examination there would 
be no great change in the result. The damage from which the com- 
plaint arises is due to the fact that all the bobolinks reared in the 
Eastern States gather in spring and autumn upon a limited area and 
attack a single crop—rice. But owing to the comparative shortness 
of the rice-eating period the amount consumed by each bird must 
constitute but a small percentage of the food of the year. 
The redwing probably owes its bad reputation as a grain eater to its 
superabundance in the great grain-raising regions of the West. 
Number of individuals, rather than amount of grain consumed by 
each, is here probably the important factor: The cowbird, well 
known as a frequenter of roads and barnyards, is not notorious as a 
grain eater, and it is probable that the greater part of the 16 percent 
of grain found in its stomach is waste. The rusty blackbird has not 
been accused of much damage, and in fact is not in this country at 
harvest time, so that the greater part of the grain it eats is also proba- 
bly waste. The yellowhead has gained an unenviable reputation in 
some parts of the West, and in point of harmfulness is reckoned by 
the farmers with the redwings, with which it associates. This is not 
surprising, as nearly 40 per cent of its food is grain; if it were as 
abundant as the redwing, it would probably be a much greater nui- 
sance than that species. The crow blackbird, while eating a consider- 
For convenience, spiders and myriapods (thousand-legs) are classed as insects in 
this investigation. 
