THE RUSTY BLACKBIRD. 4? 
While the birds are decidedly terrestrial in their feeding habits, they 
do not eat many predaceous ground-beetles (Carabide), the total con- 
sumption of these insects amounting to only 1.7 percent of the whole 
food. Scarabeids, the May-beetle family, form 2 percent, and in 
April 11.7 percent. Various other families of beetles aggregate 10.1 
percent, largely aquatic beetles and their larve, which, so far as 
known, do not have any great economic importance. A few of the 
destructive snout-beetles (Rhynchophora) are also included, as well as 
some chrysomelids and others. 
Caterpillars constitute 2.5 percent and do not form any very strik- 
ing percentage at any time, except, perhaps, in May, when they amount 
to 11.7 percent. Grasshoppers nearly equal beetles in the extent to 
which they are eaten, and exceed every other order of insects, although 
none appeared in the stomachs taken in January, March, May, and 
December, and in February but a trace. In August, as usual, they 
reach the maximum, 44.3 percent, only a trifle higher, however, than 
the October record. The average for the year is 12 percent. Various 
orders of insects, such as ants, a few bugs, and also a few flies, with 
such aquatic species as dragon-flies, caddice-flies, and ephemerids were 
eaten in all the months except January, in which only one stomach 
was taken. They aggregate 13.7 percent of the whole food, but owing 
to the number of forms no one amounts to a noteworthy percentage, 
and many of them are of little economic importance. Spiders and 
myriapods (thousand-legs) are eaten to the extent of 4 percent and 
amount to 23 percent in August. Other small animals, such as crus- 
taceans, snails, salamanders, and small fish, were found in the stomachs 
for nearly every month, and amount to 7 percent of the food of the 
year, but none of them are important from an economic point of view. 
The vegetable food consists of grain, weed seed, and various miscel- 
laneous substances, none of which amounts to any great percentage. 
The latter consist chiefly of a very small amount of fruit, a little mast, 
and a number of unidentifiable substances, probably picked up about 
water or in swamps. Of grain, corn is the favorite and amounts to 
17.6 percent of the year’s food. It constitutes 87 percent of the con- 
tents of the single stomach taken in January, but this record can not 
be used as a criterion, for with this exception the maximum percent- 
age is 26.5 (average of 15 stomachs taken in November), while the 
stomachs collected in May, August, and September show not a trace 
of corn. The fact that corn constitutes respectively only 5 and 4 
percent of the contents of the stomachs taken in December and Febru- 
ary is additional evidence that the January percentage is exceptional. 
Wheat and oats collectively amount to only 6.8 percent of the year’s 
food. Oats are apparently preferred and in March constitute 15.4 
percent of the month’s food. These March stomachs came from the 
Southern States, so it is probable that the grain was picked up on 
newly sown fields. Neither wheat nor oats were found in the stomachs 
taken in August. Grain collectively amounts to 24.4 percent of the 
