THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 37 
destroys an astonishing quantity of corn, rice, and other kinds of grain, cannot be 
denied; but that before it commences its ravages, it has proved highly serviceable to 
the crops is equally certain. * * * 
Their food at this season [spring], is almost exclusively composed of grubs, worms, 
caterpillars, and different sorts of coleopterous insects, which they procure by 
searching with great industry, in the meadows, the orchards, or the newly plowed 
fields. * * * The millions of insects which the redwings destroy at this early 
season, are, in my opinion, a full equivalent for the corn which they eat at another 
period.? 
Of more recent writers, probably Dr. B. H. Warren has made the 
most extensive researches upon the food habits of these birds. 
In stating the results of the examination of 25 stomachs, he says: 
The redwing * * * destroys large numbers of “cutworms.” I have taken from 
the stomach of a single swamp blackbird as many as 28 ‘‘cutworms.” In addition to 
the insects, etc., mentioned above, these birds also, during their residence with us, 
feed on earth-worms, grasshoppers, crickets, plant-lice and various larvee, so destruc- 
tive at times in the field and garden. During the summer season, fruits of the 
blackberry, raspberry, wild strawberry, and wild cherry are eaten to a more or less 
extent. The young, while under parental care, are fed exclusively on an insect 
diet.? ‘ 
N. S. Goss says of the redwings: 
During the fall and winter months they assemble in large flocks, and do much 
damage in the ricefields, and are often more or less injurious to the grains within 
their summer homes; but the damage they do in the latter case is overbalanced by 
the destruction of injurious insects, upon which they almost wholly feed during the 
breeding season; busy hunters of the field and followers of the plow.’ 
Stomach examination does not indicate that the redwings are 
especially fond of grain. The diagram here given (fig. 5) illustrates 
the variation in the relative proportions of the more important ele- 
ments of the food throughout the year. The preponderance of weed 
seeds over grain or other vegetable food is apparent at a glance. 
Weed seeds, such as Chatochioa (Setaria), Ambrosia, Rumex, Polygo- 
num, etc., constitute more than half the food of the year, while grain 
(nearly half oats) is less than one-seventh. The only varieties of 
Chetochloa that are cultivated extensively are Hungarian grass and 
millet, but as these are raised to a great extent as forage plants no 
great harm is done by taking the seed, except when it is newly sown 
or where the crop is raised for seed alone. The other species are all 
noxious weeds, and probably the greater part of the Chetochloa eaten 
by birds is from wild plants, which are as much of a nuisance as any 
of the other weeds when they get into cultivatcd fields. In the matter 
of fruit the redwings are almost total abstainers, only on rare occa- 
sions tasting a blackberry or some other of the smaller varieties by 
way of experiment. 
10Ornith. Biog., Vol. I, pp. 348-349, 1831. 
? Birds of Pennsylvania, revised ed., p. 212, 1890. 
3 History of the Birds of Kansas, p. 399, 1891. 
