40 FOOD OF BOBOLINK, BLACKBIRDS, AND GEACKLES^ 



the Baltimore oriole, which leaves the trees in August and descends 

 to the ground to eat grasshoppers/ While caterpillars are not all 

 harmful, none of them as far as known are doing anything for the 

 good of the farmer, so the redwings, in so far as the}^ destroj^ these 

 insects, are doing a beneficial work, and among those found in the 

 stomachs were, a number of the widely known and dreaded army worm 

 {Leucania imijyuncta). Miss Caroline G. Soule, in a letter from Bran- 

 don, Vt., quoted by Dr. C. M. Weed, says that the redwings, with 

 other birds, do especially good work in destroying the pupje of the 

 forest-tent caterpillar, and later feed on the adult insects.^ 



Other insects, such as ants and wasps (Hj^menoptera), bugs (Hemip- 

 tera), flies (Diptera), and dragon-flies (Odonata), with a few spiders 

 and myriapods, make up the rest of the animal food, but none of them 

 are eaten to such an extent as to render them of any striking economic 

 importance. Ants, bugs, and flies are all more or less injurious or 

 annoying insects, while Avasps, dragon-flies, and spiders are probably 

 for the most part somewhat useful. Dragon-flies are found about 

 water, where the redwings also live, but the}' are too rapid in flight 

 and too restless to be caught by anything less expert than a flycatcher, 

 and it is probable that those eaten by redwings arc picked up dead. 

 Spiders are for the most part useful, but in a rather restricted way, 

 and their destruction is not a great loss. Considered as a whole, the 

 animal food of the redwings consists of insects, the most of which 

 are positiveh' harmful, while but few are decidedly beneficial. 



The diagram on p. 38 shows in a striking manner the increase of 

 the animal food in early summer — that is, in June. It is probable that 

 the exhaustive labors of reproduction call for a more exclusively ani- 

 mal diet in May and June than does the strain of moulting in July 

 and August. There seems to be no other theory by which to explain 

 the decrease in the latter month, especially in view of the fact that 

 these are the months when grasshoppers abound. 



The vegetable food of the redwings consists mainly of seeds of 

 grasses and weeds, the difi'ercnt kinds of grain being merely larger or 

 more important grasses. Some of these plants, like wild rice {Zlzania)^ 

 have no economic importance; but many others, such as the culti- 

 vated grains, are of value, and their destruction is a positive loss; 

 while still others, like ragweed {Auihrosid), arc noxious weeds, the 

 destruction of which is a benefit to the farmer. The following tjible 

 shows all the vegetable substances found, with the number of stomachs 

 in which each occurred: 



* Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture for 1895, p. 429. 

 2 Bull. 64, N. H. Agr. Coll. Expt. Stii., May, 1900. 



