42 FOOD HABITS OF THE GROSBEAKS. 
the seeds of vervain (fig. 3) and dock are occasionally devoured. 
Milkweed and sunflower are added to this list by other writers. 
MISCELLANEOUS VEGETABLE FOOD. 
The rosebreast feeds upon some vegetable matter which does not 
fall into any of the previously discussed categories. Seeds of the 
touch-me-not and blood-root, plants widely known for their flowers, 
are examples. Each was eaten by 1 individual, and 1 fet upon red- 
bud seeds also, which constituted 80 per cent of its stomach contents. 
The spiny, globe-like fruits of the sweet gum (Liguidambar styra- 
ciflua) are bitten into occasionally, but the remains found in the 
stomach so resemble another but unknown substance that it was pos- 
sible to identify them certainly in only one instance, and then by 
‘means of the very characteristic fertile seeds. The pendent sycamore 
balls are sometimes rifled of their seed, as also are the aments of alder 
and birch. 
Among the objects most puzzling to classify economically are the 
curious excrescences of plants, known as galls. These, as is well 
known, are nurseries for insects, within which the larvi develop. 
They are eaten by many birds, extensively by some, and in an instance 
cited by Dr. A. D. Hopkins,’ turkeys, chickens, and even hogs and 
cattle fattened on an abundant gall of the black oak, known in Mis- 
sourl and Arkansas as * oak wheat” or * wheat mast.” An analysis 
accompanies this note which leaves no doubt that the nourishing 
elements of galls are of vegetable, not animal, origin. Although this 
may not be true of all galls, such as certain thin-walled kinds made by 
plant lice in which at the proper stage the bulk of the imprisoned 
insects exceeds that of the shell, yet generally, no doubt, it is safe to 
classify galls as vegetable food. This has been done in the case of 
those eaten by grosbeaks. Nine rosebreasts had eaten galls, but in 
only one instance did they compose as much as half the food. The 
galls eaten appeared to be similar to the spherical species common on 
oaks. 
ANIMAL Foon. 
Animal food, consisting almost exclusively of insects, composes 52 
percent of the food of the rose-breasted grosbeak. Nearly 36 per- 
cent is beetles, 3.82 percent caterpillars, 6.43 percent Hymenoptera. 
and 2.38 percent scale insects, the remainder (about 3.33 percent) 
being made up from several other groups of invertebrates. While 
the rosebreast feeds upon a large number of formidable insect pests, 
it devours some beneficial species also. The latter are accorded prior 
consideration. : 
*Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., V, 1903, pp. 151-152. 
