WARBLERS. 



43 



to an average extent of more than 25 percent of the whole food. 

 Most of the other insect food, also, is cither of a noxious or neutral 

 description, and the vegetable portion is so small that it may be dis- 

 regarded. There is probably no finer tribute to the beneficial char- 



ac 



ter of these birds than that of Dr. Elliot Cones, who savs: 



With tireless industry do the Warblers befriend the human race ; their uncon- 

 scious zeal plays due part in the nice adjustment of Nature's forces, helping to 

 bring about the balance of vegetable and insect life, without which agriculture 

 would be in vain. They visit the orchard when the apple and pear, the peach, 

 plum, and cherry, are in bloom, seeming to revel carelessly amid the sweet- 

 scented and delicately-tinted blossoms, but never faltering in their good work. 

 They peer into the crevices of the bark, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the 

 very heart of the buds, to detect, drag forth, and destroy these tiny creatures, 

 singly insignificant, collectively a scourge, which prey upon the hopes of the 

 fruit-grower and which, if undisturbed, would bring his care to naught. Some 

 Warblers flit incessantly in the terminal foliage of the tallest trees ; others hug 

 close to the scored trunks and gnarled boughs of the forest kings ; some peep 

 from the thicket, the coppice, the impenetrable mantle of shrubbery that decks 

 tiny watercourses, playing at hide-and-seek with all comers ; others more 

 humble still descend to the ground, where they glide with pretty, mincing steps 

 and affected turning of the head this way and that, their delicate flesh-tinted 

 feet just stirring the layer of withered leaves with which a past season carpeted 

 the ground. 



Following is a list of insects, mostly beetles, identified in the stom- 



A. number of these had been eaten 



achs of the warblers examined, 

 by nearly eA 7 ery species : 



Coccinella t. californica. 

 scii mn us pallens. 

 Eeymn us marginicoUis. 

 Ecymnus sp. nov. 

 Microlipus laticeps. 

 Melanoplitliahna amerieanu . 

 Aphodiusjrugifrons. 

 Diachus auratus. 

 Castroiclea cyanea. 

 Diabrotica soror. 



Saissetia olecr. 



COLEOPTERA. 



Crepidodera helxines. 

 Epitrisc purrula. 

 B melius pauperculus. 

 BJapstinus pulverulentus. 

 Xoto.rus alamedce. 

 Anthicus diffldlis. 

 Diodyrhyrichus byturoides. 

 Apion vespcrtinum. 

 Ongcliobavls in sidiosa. 

 Balaniuus sp. 



HEMIPTERA. 



Aspidiotus rapa.r. 



AUDUBON WARBLER. 



(Dendroica auduboni.) 

 (Plate III.) 



The Audubon warbler is well distributed over the Pacific coast 

 region', breeding in the mountains and descending in winter to the 

 valleys and plains of California. It is one of the most abundant 



a Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 201. 



