INJURIOUS INSECTS EATEN BY THE BLACKHEAD. 71 
wireworms, were devoured by 30 black-headed grosbeaks, but con- 
stitute only 0.77 percent of the food. Weevils also are sparingly 
consumed, which is in contrast to the avidity shown for them by 
most insect-eating birds. Twenty-five of the present collection of 
blackheads obtained specimens of these queer snouted beetles, but 
they compose less than 1 percent of the subsistence. 
Bronzy wood-borers (Buprestida) were captured by 8 erosbeaks, 
pine-feeding species being identified. Lamellicorn beetles (Scara- 
beide) fell a prey to 10 birds, but no important species were 
secured. A few blackheads obtained representatives of other coleop- 
terous famlies, such as rove-beetles (Staphylinide), darkling beetles 
(Tenebrionide), and whirligig beetles (Gyrinide), one of which 
was found in a single stomach, though how the bird secured this 
aquatic species is a mystery. A quick tiger-beetle (Cicindela) also 
was found in a single stomach, and hence, although beneficial, it 
may be passed by without comment. 
Coleopterous larvee were eaten by 7 birds, 2 of which had secured 
representatives of the family Nitidulide. As these larve are tog 
minute to have been eaten intentionally, and since they feed on decay- 
ing fruit, their presence among the stomach contents shows that the 
grosbeak also sometimes eats decayed fruit. Some of the fruit pulp, 
therefore, which could not be identified, but which was provisionally 
reckoned against the bird, is thus proven to have no value. 
Grasshoppers, which are eaten by birds almost universally, are 
neglected by this species, as they are also by the rose-breasted gros- 
beak. Only 7 of the 226 blackheads examined had eaten them, and 
- they constitute only 0.25 percent of the subsistence. Nevertheless, 
the black-headed grosbeak is included among the enemies of the 
Rocky Mountaizi locust by Samuel Aughey, who examined 2 speci- 
mens, one of which had eaten 8, the other 17 locusts. 
Notwithstanding the blackhead is rather whimsical about a grass- 
hopper ration, it shares the taste of most other birds for caterpillars, 
and it devours them and their chrysalids to the extent of 9 percent 
of its food. Spines and hairs, popularly supposed to be abhorred by 
birds, do not deter the blackhead, and sometimes all that is left in the 
stomach to tell of the capture of caterpillars is a mass of thorns and 
spines. Exactly 100 black-headed grosbeaks fed upon lepidopterous 
insects, 70 of them choosing caterpillars and 30 cocoons and chry- 
salids. It is among remains of the latter that we find representa- 
tives of the most important species in the order5—the codling moth 
(fig 84). This pest is said to cause a loss of not less than $10,000,000 
annually to the fruit growers of the United States. Inasmuch as the 
insect has no important parasites, its feathered enemies should be 
all the more appreciated, and it is safe to say that, with the probable 
exception of woodpeckers, the blackhead is the equal of any of them. 
