No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. 347 



cumstance is theirs." (Coues, " Birds of the Colorado Valley.") 

 " Of the food of the 53 specimens collected, 96 per cent con- 

 sisted of insects, and 4 per cent of fruit. The insect food was 

 distributed as follows: beetles, 21 per cent; ants, wasps, and bees, 

 18 per cent; May-ilies, 16 per cent; caterpillars, 14 per cent; bugs 

 (leaf-hoppers, scale insects, and true bugs), 6 per cent; miscel- 

 laneous insects, including flies, a few grasshoppers, and others, 

 8 per cent ; spiders, 1 1 per cent ; and miscellaneous invertebrates, 

 principally snails, 2 per cent. Of the 21 per cent of beetles, 3 

 per cent were useful forms, 5 per cent neutral, and 13 per cent 

 injurious." (Judd, " Birds of a Maryland Farm.") 



Of the individual species it is necessary to say little, as their food 

 is practically the same — insects almost exclusively, — -although 

 the Myrtle Warbler {Dendroica coronata) feeds on bayberries 

 frequently in winter. The Tennessee Warbler {Vermivora 

 peregrina) in some parts of the country pierces grapes, but with 

 us it is hardly more than a straggler. A Nebraskan Black and 

 White Warbler (Mniotilta varia) has been known to eat 41 

 locusts and 21 other insects at a meal; while from the stomachs of 

 two Wisconsin birds were taken 21 caterpillars. Two Myrtle 

 Warblers were found by Professor King to have eaten 21 cater- 

 pillars, mostly measuring- worms ; five, to have eaten 14 two- 

 winged flies, among which were three crane-flies; and 15, to 

 have eaten 48 beetles. " Two-thirds of the food of five Illinois 

 Yellow Warblers {Dendroica csstiva cBstiva) consisted of canker- 

 worms, and most of the remainder was an injurious beetle." The 

 Maryland Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas trichas) "especially 

 frequents the shrubbery about standing or running water, where 

 it can be found throughout the summer busily searching for in- 

 sect food. It often visits orchards, where cankerworms and 

 other caterpillars are greedily devoured, these forming in three 

 cases on record four-fifths of its food. The little case-bearing 

 caterpillars of the genus Coleophora and its allies are often eaten, 

 while butterflies, moths, two-winged flies, beetles, grasshoppers, 

 leaf-hoppers, bugs, dragon-flies, Hymenoptera, and insects' eggs 

 are all included on the bill of fare. The young are sometimes 

 fed with small grasshoppers, and these insects are a favorite item 

 of food with the adult birds." (Weed and Dearborn, " Birds in 

 their Relation to Man.") Seven Nebraskan American Redstarts 



