50 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GRACKLES. 
BREWER’S BLACKBIRD. 
(Scolecophagus cyanocephalus. ) 
Brewer's blackbird breeds from Manitoba and the eastern edge of 
the Great Plains south to northern New Mexico and westward to the 
Pacific, and spends the winter in the southern part of this region and 
in Mexico. The economic status of the species has as yet hardly 
become well defined, but some complaints have been received from the 
grain-growing sections, and it may possibly be a pest where it exists 
in any great numbers. The bird is eminently gregarious most of the 
year, though less so at breeding time. Like the cowbird, it is an 
industrious gleaner in pastures, harnvards, and roads, and even invades 
the streets of towns for the purpose of gathering scattered grain and 
other foraye. 
But little testimony is available as to the food of Brewer's blackbird, 
but Goss says that the members of this species are ‘‘ social, gregarious 
birds, breeding in small colonies, and foraging together over the culti- 
vated fields, pastures and plains; indiscriminate eaters of insect life, 
seeds, etc.,and * * * vegular visitants of the slaughterhouses.”? 
In the investigation by the Biological Survey 146 stomachs were 
examined, collected from six States and representing every month 
except April (see p. 75).” The first analysis of the food shows that 
animal matter forms 31.8 percent and vegetable matter 68.2 percent. 
The animal food consists almost wholly of insects, the only exceptions 
being a few spiders and snails. The insects are mostly beetles, ants, 
wasps, and grasshoppers, with a few caterpillars, flies, and bugs. 
Beetles amount to 7.8 percent of the food of the year. The only 
group which appears at all prominently is that of the snout-beetles, or 
Rhynchophora, which in May constitute 29 percent of the food. In the 
other months they are not found so often, and the average for the year 
ix only 3.4 percent. Predaceous beetles (Carabide) are eaten to the 
amount of 1.7 percent, and are not conspicuous in any month. 
Hymenoptera constitute 14.8 percent of the food for August, but do 
not appear very prominently in the other months, and average but 2.5 
percent for the year. They consist for the most part of wasps and 
ants, with a few of the smaller parasitic species. 
Grasshoppers are the favorite insect. diet, constituting more than 
half of the total animal food (16.1 percent). Only a trace appears in 
the February stomachs, but in March the amount. increases to 20.5 
percent, and except in July does not fall below this figure until Octo- 
ber. In August, which as usual is the month of greatest: consump- 
tion, er shopper s constitute 47.5 percent—ner uly half of all the food. 
Hist. Birds of Kansas, p. 409, 1891, 
2One stomach was taken in April, but as its contents were quite unlike the average 
of those collected in March and May, it has been discarded until more can be 
obtained for the same month. 
