No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. 313 



corrmjon weeds are considered in connection with the discussion 

 of the value of birds as weed destroyers. 



" The animal food of the smaller land birds consists of insects 

 and spiders. The insects belong, for the most part to the orders 

 Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Orthoptera (grasshoppers, 

 locusts, and crickets), Diptera (flies), Hemiptera (bugs), 

 Coleoptera (beetles), and Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps). 

 Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, and Coleoptera furnish the bulk of the 

 insect food of birds. The lepidopterous food is taken almost en- 

 tirely in the larval condition, and comprises smooth caterpillars 

 belonging largely to the family Noctuidas, which includes cut- 

 worms, army worms, and their allies. The Orthoptera eaten are 

 principally long- and short-homed grasshoppers (Locustidas and 

 Acrididae). Coleoptera form a most important element of bird 

 food, the families of this order most largely represented being 

 the Scarabaeidas or scarabasid beetles, the Carabidae or ground 

 beetles, the Elateridae or click beetles, the Chrysomelidas or leaf 

 beetles, and the Rhynchophora or weevils. Some of the scara- 

 basids that are eaten are the clumsy brown May beetles and their 

 allies which feed on growing plants ; others comprise a group of 

 beetles commonly known as dung beetles, because they subsist 

 on the droppings of animals. Ground beetles are alert, active 

 insects, carnivorous in food habits. Click beetles are narrow 

 and hard-shelled ; when disturbed, they curl up and ' play possum ' 

 until the danger appears to be past, when they spring into the 

 air by spasmodically straightening out their bodies with a sharp 

 clicking sound. Their larvae, wireworms, are often very destruc- 

 tive to crops. The leaf beetles taken by birds are pests of little 

 economic importance. Weevils constitute a destructive class of 

 insect pests, and are extensively preyed on. Diptera furnish no 

 significant part of the food of birds, though the slow-moving 

 crane-flies (Tipulidas) and midges (Chironomidae) are at times 

 snapped up, and some larval Diptera are occasionally eaten. The 

 Hemiptera include both leaf-hoppers (Jassidae),- which derive 

 their sustenance by probing plants with their sucking beaks, and 

 true bugs, which are flat, bad-smelling insects. Some of the 

 bugs feed like leaf-hoppers on the juices of plants, while others 

 are predatory and subsist on succulent insects. The h3mienop-- 

 terous element of bird food is composed of ants, wasps, and a 



