VIREOS. 89 
scale. Here, then, is an instance where the bird eats the useful beetle 
and also its noxious prey. As there is nothing to indicate that the 
bird exercises a choice between them, we must infer that it eats both 
whenever it finds them. It eats the beetles and the food (scales) 
upon which they feed. From this point of view also it must be 
allowed that the harm done by the vireos in eating coccinellids is offset 
to some extent. 
WESTERN WARBLING VIREO. 
(Vireo gilrus sirainsoni.) > 
One hundred and ten stomachs of the warbling vireo have been 
examined. They were collected during the seven months from April 
to October, inclusive, and though hardly as many as could be desired, 
they probably furnish a fair idea of the food during that portion of 
the year. 
Vegetable food.—Insects, with a few spiders, amount to over 97 
percent of the diet, leaving less than 3 percent of vegetable matter, 
practically all of which was taken in August and September; it 
consisted of wild fruit (elderberries), a few seeds of poison oak, a few 
other seeds, and some rubbish. 
Animal food—Of the animal food the largest item is Lepidoptera ; 
that is, caterpillars, moths, and the like. These amount to something 
more than 48 percent of the whole. Caterpillars make up the great 
bulk of this portion of the food and are a very constant and regular 
article of diet. Fewer are eaten in July and August and more at the 
beginning and end of the season. In April they amount to over 82 
percent of the food of the month. Pupz of codling moths were iden- 
tified in four stomachs, and minute fragments probably of the same 
were found in several others. A few adult moths also were found, 
but the species could not be identified. 
Hemiptera are the next most important item of diet, and amount 
to 21 percent. They consist of stink-bugs, leaf-bugs, leat-hoppers, 
spittle-insects, tree-hoppers, and scales. The last were the black olive 
species (Saissetia olew). Coccinellid beetles, or ladybirds, were eaten 
to the extent of over 19 percent of the whole. None was in the 
stomachs taken in October, while the greater part (over 63 percent) 
was contained in those obtained in July. The species belong to the 
genera Hippodamia and Coccinella, which are larger than those of 
the genus Scymnus selected by the warblers. Other beetles, mostly 
harmful species, amount to more than 7 percent. 
Hymenoptera, which are an important food of the warblers, are 
conspicuous by their absence in the stomach of the warbling vireo. A 
little more than 1 percent represents the sum total. They consist ofa 
few ants and an occasional wasp. 
