beewee's blackbird. 51 



In July the percentage falls to 8.2, apparently because at that time 

 the grain harvest is at hand and the birds eat freely of oats, wheat, 

 etc. The miscellaneous list is made up of a few flies, bugs, and cater- 

 pillars, the latter such as might be expected in the stomach of a bird 

 of the habits of the species under consideration, though the number 

 really found is surprisingly small. One stomach taken in California 

 in March contained 90 per cent of caterpillars, and a few other stomachs 

 contained them in smaller amounts; but they do not constitute an 

 important percentage of any month. Mr. J, F. Illingsworth, of 

 Ontario, Cal. , says that he has never failed to find from one to five 

 worms [caterpillers] in each stomach that he has examined, which 

 indicates that under some circumstances they do eat these insects 

 extensively. 



The vegetable food of Brewer's blackbird is preeminently grain, 

 which amounts to 60.3 percent of the total food of the year, while 

 all other vegetable food aggregates only 7.9 percent. Oats, corn, 

 wheat, and a little barley are eaten, and of these oats are the most 

 important, amounting to nearly three-fourths of the total quantity 

 and being eaten in every month of the year.^ Corn stands next to 

 oats, but far below in quantitj^; wheat follows next in order, and bar- 

 lev comes last, the latter having been found in only two stomachs. 



So important an element is grain that it constitutes more than 60 

 percent of the food in each of eight months, and in May, the month 

 of least consumption, still amounts to 21 percent of the whole food. 

 While much of this may be waste grain, it can hardly be probable that 

 all of it is picked up in highwa3^s and byways. In July it amounts to 

 nearl}'' 72 percent of the food, and there can be no doubt that much 

 of this is gathered from ripening fields. Other vegetable food con- 

 sists for the most part of weed seed, but the small amount differs 

 remarkabl}' from the quantities eaten b}^ the redwing and cowbird, 

 which are great weed destroyers at all times, and especiall}'- in winter. 

 Brewer's blackbird eats grain in every month, and in winter subsists 

 upon it almost entirely. Mr. Walter K. Fisher, writing from Stock- 

 ton, Cal., reports it as feeding on newly sown wheat that had not been 

 harrowed in and eating nearly all that had been thus left exposed. 

 He describes the birds as visiting the fields in immense flocks, which, 

 at a distance, look like smoke rising from the ground, and says that 

 stomachs of birds taken on such fields were found to be full of wheat. 



In summing up the results of this investigation it must be acknowl- 

 edged that the stomachs examined are too few, and are not distributed 

 widely enough geographically, to justify a final economic classification 

 of the bird. Nevertheless some very salient points seem to have been 



'The greatest quantities were found in stomachs taken in January at Escondido, Cal. 



