62 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 
As will be noticed, the whole time of observation covered a period 
of thirteen days, although the nest was not watched every day. In 
all the nest was watched for twelve hours, and the total number of 
times that food was brought to the young was 284, or an average of 
194 times per hour. The young were fed as early as 5 o’clock in the 
morning and as late as 7 in the evening, thus making for the parent 
birds a working day of fourteen hours. Only a little plain arithmetic 
is necessary to show very nearly the number of insects destroyed by 
this family in a single day. 
These observations were made with watch in hand and the time of 
each feeding noted. In many cases the parent bird was away in 
search of food only half a minute. Once there was a heavy mist 
nearly all day, when the mother wren was hard pressed to find food 
for the ever-gaping mouths of her young. No flying insects were 
abroad, and the supply of caterpillars from the immediate vicinity 
had been exhausted. In this extremity the mother turned her atten- 
tion to spiders and was seen to visit the interior of a summer house, 
also to investigate a pile of flower pots and tubs and to plunge into 
and under an evergreen hedge in search of something that would 
answer for food. As the nest was watched at very short range, it was 
often possible to determine the nature of the food brought by the 
parent. When the nestlings were very young, it consisted almost 
entirely of small green caterpillars, commonly called * canker-worms.’ 
Later this was varied by tipulid flies (daddy-long-legs), small moths, 
and spiders. Some of the insects brought were uot determinable, 
probably flies and wasps. 
SUE AMLALARY. 
From the above sketch of the food of the house wren it will be seen 
that there is practically only one item to which exception can be taken, 
namely, the coceinellid beetles, or ladybugs. But the record is so 
meager that it is not safe to draw general conclusions. It is probable 
that. a more extensive iivesigation of the food of the California bird 
will show that if is entitled to the same high economic rank as its 
eastern relath ec. 
WEATDPS MARSH WREN. 
(Poinatedytcs paiustris subspp.) 
The marsh wren, as its name indicates, is a resident of swamps 
and marshy grounds, At first thought its food might not appear to 
he of any econonic importance, but investigation shows that it does 
not differ from that of the orchard wrens as much as one might infer 
from difference of habitat. Only 53 stomachs of this species have 
heen obtained for examination, While this number is not sufficient 
asa basis for final judgment, it suffices to show how closely the food 
of this species resembles that of its congeners. 
