WARBLERS. 43 
to an average extent of more than ~5 percent of the whole food. 
Most. of the other insect food, also, is either of a noxious or neutral 
description, and the vegetable portion is so small that it may be dis- 
regarded. There is probably no finer tribute to the beneficial char- 
acter of these birds than that of Dr. Elliot Coues, who says: 
With tireless industry do the Warblers befriend the human race; their uncon- 
scious zeal plays due part in the nice adjustment of Nature’s forces, helping to 
bring about the balance of vegetable and insect life, Without which agriculture 
would be in vain. They visit the orchard when the apple and pear, the peach. 
plum, and cherry, are in bloom, seeming to revel carelessly amid the sweet- 
scented and delicately-tinted blossoms, but never faltering in their good work. 
They peer into the crevices of the bark, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the 
very heart of the buds, to detect, drag forth, and destroy these tiny creatures, 
singly insignificant, collectively a scourge, which prey upon the hopes of the 
fruit-grower and which, if undisturbed, would bring his care to naught. Some 
Warblers flit incessantly in the terminal foliage of the tallest trees; others hug 
close to the scored trunks and gnarled boughs of the forest kings; some peep 
from the thicket, the coppice, the impenetrable mantle of shrubbery that decks 
tiny watercourses, playing at hide-and-seek with all comers; others more 
huinble still descend to the ground, where they glide with pretty, mincing steps 
and affected turning of the head this way and that, their delicate flesh-tinted 
feet just stirring the layer of withered leaves with which a past season carpeted 
the ground.¢ 
Following is a list of insects, mostly beetles, identified in the stom- 
achs of the warblers examined. .A number of these had been eaten 
by nearly every species: 
COLEOPTERA. 
Coccinella t. californica, Crepidodera heLrines. 
Xcummnus pallens. Epitrix parvala, 
Scymnus marginicollis, Bruchus paupereulus, 
Scymnus sp. nov. Blapstinus pulverulentus, 
Microlipus laticeps. NVotorus alameda. 
Melanophthalma americana. Anthicus difficilis, 
Aphodiusrugifrons. Diodyrhynchus byturoides. 
Diachus auratus. Apion respertinum, 
Gastroidea cyanea. Onychobaris insidiosa. 
Diabrotiea soror. Balaninus sp. 
HEMIPTERA. 
Saissetia olew. LLspidiotus rapax. 
AUDUBON WARBLER. 
(Dendroica auduboni,) 
(Plate ITI.) 
The Audubon warbler is well distributed over the Pacific coast 
region, breeding in the mountains and descending in winter to the 
valleys and plains of California. It is one of the most abundant 
a Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 201. 
