3IO CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



table ; but it is entitled to all possible protection, and to slaughter 

 it for game is the least profitable way to utilize a valuable species." 

 (Beal, " Some Common Birds in their Relation to Agriculture.") 



The Baltimore Oriole {Icterus galbula) annoys the fruit- 

 grower in August by sometimes puncturing grapes, and is also 

 accused of occasional forays on the cherry trees, or the pea 

 garden. But its services to the farmer and horticulturist far 

 more than pay the toll it takes. 



" Observation both in the field and laboratory shows that 

 caterpillars constitute the largest item of its fare. In 113 

 stomachs they formed 34 per cent of the food, and are eaten in 

 varying quantities during all the months in which the bird re- 

 mains in this country, although the fewest are eaten in July, when 

 a little fruit is also taken. The other insects consist of beetles, 

 bugs, ants, wasps, grasshoppers, and some spiders. The beetles 

 are principally click beetles, the larvae of which are among the 

 most destructive insects known; and the bugs include plant and 

 bark lice, both very harmful, but so small and obscure as to be 

 passed over unnoticed by most birds. Ants are eaten mostly in 

 spring, grasshoppers in July and August, and wasps and spiders 

 with considerable regularity throughout the season. 



" Vegetable matter amounts to only a little more than 16 per 

 cent of the food during the bird's stay in the United States, so 

 that the possibility of the Oriole doing much damage to crops 

 is very limited. The bird has been accused of eating peas to a 

 considerable extent, but remains of peas were found in only two 

 stomachs. One writer says that it damages grapes, but none 

 were found. In fact a few blackberries and cherries comprised 

 the only cultivated fruit detected in the stomachs, the remainder 

 of the vegetable food being wild fruit and a few miscellaneous 

 seeds." (Beal, " Some Common Birds in their Relation to Agri- 

 culture.") 



The Orchard Oriole {Icterus spurius) is common only along 

 our southern border, but is a valuable bird. " The food of the 

 Orchard Oriole is almost exclusively insects. Of these it con- 

 sumes a large number, and with them it also feeds its young. Most 

 of these are of the kinds most obnoxious to the husbandman, 

 preying upon the foliage, destroying the fruit, and otherwise in- 

 juring the tree; and their destroyers render an incalculable 



