WARBLERS. 45 
Bugs collectively amount to nearly 20 percent, of which a little 
more than + percent are scales and plant-lice. The black olive scale 
(Saissetia olew) and another species (Aspidiotus rapax) were found 
in 15 stomachs. Plant-lice (Aphididx) were contained in 39 stom- 
achs, and from the numbers eaten appear to be favorite food. Sev- 
eral stomachs were entirely filled with them. and the stomachs in 
which they were found contained an average of 71 percent in each. 
The remainder of the hemipterous food, more than 15 percent, is 
made up of stink bugs, leaf-hoppers, and tree-hoppers, with a con- 
siderable residue of other remains not further identified. Bugs, as a 
whole, are eaten rather irregularly, and the greater number are eaten 
in the fall months, after which the number consumed gradually 
decreases. Caterpillars are eaten rather regularly by the Audubon 
warbler, but not in great numbers. They amount to nearly 14 percent 
of the food of the season, though this figure includes a few moths and 
chrysalids. Some cocoons of tineid moths were in several stomachs. 
Beetles of all kinds aggregate something more than 6 percent of 
the whole diet. They belong to several families, but the snout-beetles 
are most prominent. The others belong to about a dozen families, 
and, except a few carrion and ladybird beetles, are injurious. A few 
insects other than the above and somie spiders, in all a little less than 
2 percent, make up the rest of the animal food. 
Vegetable food—The vegetable food of the Audubon warbler con- 
sists of fruit, weed seed, and a few miscellaneous substances. As the 
bird does not visit the fruit-growing regions during the fruit season, 
it is not chargeable with injury to cultivated crops. Almost all the 
fruit eaten is wild and of no value, though in the fall it probably 
feeds to some extent upon various belated products of the orchard. 
The total of fruit for the season is less than 5 percent, of which the 
greater amount is eaten in the autumn and early winter, after which 
the quantity is unimportant. 
The most prominent item of vegetable diet, however, is weed seed. 
This is eaten to the extent of a little more than 9 percent of the whole 
food, and is taken in almost every month of the bird’s stay, the 
greater quantity in winter. Something more than 31 percent was 
eaten in December, 22 in January, and 31 in February, after which 
it decreases regularly to April. One of the most important seeds 
eaten by the Audubon warbler is that of the poison oak (Rhus diver- 
siloba (PI. II, fig. 9). In most cases the whole seed is not eaten by 
this bird, but only the waxy outer coating, which is easily identified by 
certain seaside granules which it contains; hence the bird does not aid 
in the diseeiution of these noxious plants. The remaining vegetable 
food, amounting to less than 2 percent, consists principally ot rabbit. 
