40 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GRACKLES, 
the Baltimore oriole, which leaves the trees in August and descends 
to the ground to eat grasshoppers.’ While caterpillars are not all 
harmful, none of them as far as known are doing anything for the 
good of the farmer, so the redwings, in so far as they destroy these 
insects, are doing a beneficial work, and among those found in the 
stomachs were a number of the widely known and dreaded army worm 
(Leucania unipuncta). Miss Caroline G. Soule, ina letter from Bran- 
don, Vt., quoted by Dr. C. M. Weed, says that the redwings, with 
other birds, do especially good work in destroying the pupe of the 
forest-tent caterpillar, and later feed on the adult insects.’ 
Other insects, such as ants and wasps (Hymenoptera), bugs (Hemip. 
tera), flies (Diptera), and dragon-flies (Odonata), with a few spiders 
and myriapods, make up the rest of the animal food, but none of them 
are eaten to such an extent as to render them of any striking economic 
importance. Ants, bugs, and flies are all more or less injurious or 
annoying insects, while wasps, dragon-flies, and spiders are probably 
for the most part somewhat useful. Dragon-flies are found about 
water, where the redwings also live, but they are too rapid in flight 
and too restless to be caught by anything less expert than a flycatcher, 
and it is probable that those eaten by redwings are picked up dead. 
Spiders are for the most part useful, but in a rather restricted way, 
and their destruction is not a great loss. Considered as a whole, the 
animal food of the redwings consists of insects, the most of which 
are positively harmful, while but few are decidedly beneficial. 
The diagram on p. 38 shows in a striking manner the increase of 
the animal food in early summer—that is, in June. It is probable that 
the exhaustive labors of reproduction call for a more exclusively ani- 
mal diet in May and June than does the strain of moulting in July 
and August. There seems to be no other theory by which to explain 
the decrease in the latter month, especially in view of the fact that 
these are the months when grasshoppers abound. 
The vegetable food of the redwings consists mainly of seeds of 
grasses and weeds, the different kinds of grain being merely larger or 
more important grasses. Some of these plants, like wild rice (Zizania), 
have no economic importance; but many others, such as the culti- 
vated grains, are of value, and their destruction is a positive loss; 
while still others, like ragweed (Ambrosia), are noxious weeds, the 
destruction of which is a benefit to the farmer. The following table 
shows all the vegetable substances found, with the number of stomachs 
in which each occurred: 
1Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture for 1895, p. 429. 
* Bull, 64, N, H. Agr. Coll. Expt. Sta., May, 1900. 
