660 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
of the food of the species. A few cutworms and many other caterpillars 
brought the lepidoptera up to one-fourth of the food and there was 14 
percent of ants, while about one-half the food consisted of beetles. Three 
Catbirds taken in a canker-worm orchard in Tazewell county, Illinois, 
and reported on by Forbes had not eaten canker-worms at all. Their 
preference for ants was clearly shown, these forming 17 percent of their 
food, predaceous beetles 16 percent, scavenger beetles and thousandlegs 
each 5 percent, and undetermined caterpillars made more than one-fourth 
of the food, while a cutworm or two were distinguished. Twenty percent 
was vine chafers (Anomala) and 5 percent consisted of the common spring 
beetle (Melanotus) (Trans. Ill. State Hort. Soc. Vol. 15, 1881, p. 124). 
In another report on the food of this bird (Ibid, Vol. 14, pp. 112-113), 
Prof. Forbes says ‘The ratios of insects for the five months May to Septem- 
ber were 83, 49, 18, 46 and 21. Chinch-bugs were found in the food of 
one bird only. Orthoptera seemed to be most abundant in the late and 
early months, diminishing in June and July. Raspberries and black- 
berries are the most prominent elements of June, July and August. Wild 
cherries take the place of these fruits in September, and grapes are then 
eaten to some extent. The credit I have given it must be still further 
reduced because of its serious depredations on the apple orchards. I have 
often seen it busily scooping out the fairest side of the ripest, earliest apples, 
unsurpassed in skill and industry in this employment by the Red-headed 
Woodpecker or Blue Jay.” The Catbird has often been named as a foe 
to the chinch-bug, but Prof. Forbes says ‘Among the birds shot in 1880 
during midsummer, when the chinch-bug was abundant enough in central 
Illinois to cause some alarm, the Catbird was found to have eaten these 
insects in barely sufficient numbers to show that it has no unconquerable 
prejudice against them” (Ibid, p. 130). Prof. Aughey, of Nebraska, found 
that the Catbird fed regularly upon the Rocky Mountain locust, birds 
taken in June of four different years showing from 20 to 40 locusts in each 
stomach. 
The most exhaustive study of the Catbird’s food yet made was: that 
carried out by the late Dr. Sylvester Judd, of the U. 8S. Department of 
Agriculture, who in 1895 reported upon the food of the Catbird as shown 
by the examination of 213 stomachs, and various field studies. His 
conclusions show that beetles and ants form the most important part 
of the animal food of the Catbird, though smooth caterpillars play no 
insignificant part. Crickets and grasshoppers come next in importance, 
and constant but less important parts of the fare are thousandlegs, centi- 
pedes, spiders and bugs. It subsists largely upon fruit, of which one-third 
is taken from cultivated crops. The value of its insect-eating is much 
lessened by the fact that it eats many predaceous ground-beetles, but 
on the other hand it eats some of the strong-scented leaf-eating beetles 
Vee decidedly harmful (Yearbook, U. 8. Dept. of Agriculture, 1895, 
Experiments with caged Catbirds gave some interesting results. ‘After 
several unsuccessful attempts one Catbird was induced to eat a honey bee. 
Small slugs, though eaten by one bird, seemed to be regarded as unsavory. 
Weevils and bad-smelling bugs were eaten with relish, as were also sow- 
bugs. Plant-lice were refused, though ants which attended them were 
greedily devoured. Maggots were eaten, and a hideous black spider was 
torn to pieces by all four Catbirds and then eaten with relish” (Ibid, 
