LEAF-BEETLES EATEN BY THE ROSEBREAST. 49 
Although the potato beetle is the worst pest in the Chrysomelide, 
this family contains other serious enemies of crops. The rosebreast 
feeds upon several of them, thereby further commending itself to our 
esteem. Both the small striped and the spotted cucumber beetles (fig. 
26), which are abundant and injurious over much of the United States, 
are consumed. The importance of the bird’s inroads upon one of 
these little black and yellow species, which in the larval stage is the 
destructive corn root-worm, is emphasized by the fact that no direct 
method of combating the insect has yet been devised. Twelve gros- 
beaks fed upon these beetles, as many as 7 being found in a single 
stomach. Further evidence of the bird’s strong preference for them 
is furnished by Mr. Ridgway, who observed a number of rosebreasts 
feeding exclusively on spotted cucumber beetles in a locality where 
the latter were very 
abundant. 
Ten of the gros- 
beaks examinec 
had eaten another 
kind of leaf-beetle 
(Melasoma lappon- 
tca), which feeds on 
willows and pop- 
lars, sometimes 
working havoc by 
defoliating trees, 
especially in wind- 
breaks. These 
beetles appear. to 
be much relished, Fig. 26.—Spotted cucumber-beetle (Diabrotica 12-punctata). 
as from 10 to OT (From Riley and Chittenden, Bureau of Entomology.) 
were taken by individual rosebreasts, of whose food they composed 
from 60 to almcst 100 percent. Two or three other species of Chry- 
somelide, injurious to willows, to grapes, and to garden crops, are 
devoured. Nine birds ate beetles of one of these species (Calligrapha 
bigsbyana), which in individual cases constituted 70 per cent of the 
stomach contents. The rosebreast devours also two Hispid leaf- 
beetles, one of which causes-considerable injury. This is the locust 
leaf-miner (Odontota dorsalis), which sometimes devastates whole 
groups of trees, leaving them as if scorched by fire. Eight grosbeaks 
had eaten leaf-miners, and in one case 8 were consumed by a single 
bird. 
The long list of beetles of this family that are preyed upon by the 
rosebreast is completed by the strawberry root-worm (7'ypophorus 
