286 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



in 230 stomachs examined, 56 per cent of animal matter, 39 per 

 cent of vegetable, and 5 per cent of mineral. More than three- 

 fourths of the animal matter consisted of ants, but spiders, 

 beetles, and myriapods were also present. Of the vegetable mat- 

 ter, corn and buckwheat were found in only six stomachs, the 

 rest consisting of various berries and seeds, many of them those 

 of weeds. In a later report. Professor Beal states that 60.92 per 

 cent of the contents of 684 stomachs was animal matter, and 39.08 

 per cent vegetable. " It eats only a few predaceous ground 

 beetles. The remainder of the animal food is entirely of harmful 

 species. In its vegetable diet, grain and fruit are the only -useful 

 products eaten, and the quantities are insignificant. The bird, 

 like many others, has the bad habit of sowing broadcast the seeds 

 of the poison Rhus, but there seems no remedy for this." (Beal, 

 " Food of the Woodpeckers of the United States.") 



NIGHTHAWKS and WHIP-POOR-WILLS. 



Caprimulgid^. 



The Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus vociferus) 

 and the Nighthawk (Chordeiles virginianus virginianus) subsist 

 almost entirely on the different night-flying insects. Moths, beetles, 

 and injurious grasshoppers form a large portion of the food of the 

 Whip-poor-will (Weed and Dearborn) ; and Mr. Nash found 

 the stomach of one filled with large wingless ants (Nash, " Birds 

 of Ontario"). Flying Nighthawks shot in the evening by the 

 author in North Dakota have almost invariably had the entire 

 throat crowded full of insects, and the thick coating of fat on 

 these birds shows how abundant they find this food. " It is a 

 great insect eater, its food consisting of May-flies, dragon-flies, 

 beetles of many kinds, water-boatmen, scorpion-flies, bugs of 

 various sorts, and many grasshoppers. From seven Nebraska 

 specimens Professor Aughey took three hundred and forty-eight 

 Rocky Mountain locusts, an average of forty-nine to each bird. 

 An Arkansas specimen examined by F. L. Harvey contained 

 more than six hundred insects — gnats, beetles, flies, ants, and 

 grasshoppers. Professor Herrick has found that the young are 

 fed largely on firefly beetles." (Weed and Dearborn.) Yet this 

 bird, whose whole existence is given to keeping insect pests under, 

 is shot in wantonness by almost every boy with a gun, until it is 



