20 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIEDS, AND GEACKLES. 



of a more or less harmful character, make up the rest of the coleop- 

 terous food. Hymenoptera, represented by ants and some wasps, and 

 by many of the small parasitic species, form 7.6 percent of the food, 

 and were found mosth^ in Maj^ and July stomachs. The bobolink eats 

 more of these useful parasitic Hymenoptera than an}" other bird whose 

 food habits have thus far been investigated, although it should be stated 

 that examinations of flycatchers and other birds now in course of 

 completion indicate that it will soon lose its position at the head of the 

 list. Caterpillars are apparentlj^ a favorite food. They form 17.6 

 percent of the May food, and rise to 28.1 percent in June, after 

 which they gradually decrease, averaging in the five months 13 per 

 cent. Those eaten are mostly of the species known as cutworms, and 

 include the well-known Nejplielodes molam. Grasshoppers constitute 

 11.5 percent of the food, and are eaten principally in June and July, 

 when they amount to 23.2 and 25.8 percent respectively. This is 

 unusual. There seems to be a pretty general law that all birds, no 

 matter what their food hal)its may be during the rest of the 3'ear, eat 

 grasshoppers in August, just as the human race eats certain delicacies 

 in their respective season.s. But in August, when with most birds the 

 grasshopper season is at its height, the bobolinks begin to drop their 

 animal diet and eat vegeta])le food in preparation for the rice season 

 in the South. Besides the insects already mentioned, a few bugs and 

 flii^s are eaten, and also some spiders and myriapods. 



Of the vegetable food, 8.3 percent consists of oats, most of which 

 are consumed in August, when the}' reach 31.4 percent of the whole 

 food for the month. Besides oats and rice, little grain is eaten. 

 Wheat and barley were found in a few stomachs, and buckwheat in 

 one. Corn was not found. Weed seeds, such as ])arngi-ass, panic- 

 grass, smartweed, and ragweed, are eaten to the extent of 16.2 per- 

 cent of the food, and like oats are taken mostly in August, when they 

 amount to 36.9 per cent. Various other articles of \'egetal>le food 

 go to make up the diet of the bol)olinks, while they remain in the 

 North, the most importjint of which is wild rice, which seems to be 

 the favorite food during the journey to the rice plantations. This 

 plant is as aquatic as its cultivated relative, and abounds along all the 

 bays, estuaries, and rivers of the Atlantic coast, where it affords food 

 for millions of birds of many species in the latter part of August and 

 during September and later. It was originally, no doubt, the princi- 

 pal food of the bobolinks at this season, and remained so until the 

 advent of civilization introduced something that the ]>irds found even 

 more to their taste. Of the two birds taken in the rice fields in May, 

 one had eaten 55 percent of insects and 45 percent of rice, with a 

 trace of weed seed, while the other had eaten 50 percent of insects, 

 25 percent of rice, and 25 percent of weed seed. Of the insect^, 41 

 percent in one stomach and 30 in the other were snout-])eetles (Hhyn- 

 chophora). The remainder were harmful beetles of other kinds and 



