WHITE-THROATED SPARROW. 73 



summer and winter ranges of the white-throated sparrow are, to 

 a considerable extent, within agricultural life zones. Its economic 

 relations are therefore more important. 



Dr. B. H. Warren states that during spring in Pennsylvania he 

 has seen white-throated sparrows feeding on buds and blossoms of 

 beech, maple, and apple. ^ These observations have not yet been con- 

 firmed in the laboratory examination of stomachs. While in the field 

 in May I have noted white-throated sparrows eating the fruit of elm 

 trees, but have never found them damaging buds or blossoms. 



Two hundred and seventeen stomachs, collected during every month 

 in the year except June, have been examined. Most of these stom- 

 achs were collected in New York and Pennsylvania, but a large num- 

 ber came from Iowa, Minnesota, Georgia, and Texas, and some from 

 New Brunswick. The food for the year, as a whole, as indicated b}^ 

 stomach contents, consists of 19 percent animal matter and 81 percent 

 vegetable matter. Of the vegetable food, 3 percent is grain, 50 per- 

 cent weed seed, and the remainder chieflj^ wild fruit. 



The insect food resembles that of many other species in general 

 character, but some interesting differences appear when it is viewed 

 in detail. Ilymenoptera constitute 6 percent of the year's food; 

 Coleoptera, 5 percent; Heteroptera and Diptera, taken together, 3 

 percent, and Lepidoptera, 3 percent, the customar}^ quota of spiders, 

 millipedes, and snails supplying the remaining 2 percent of the ani- 

 mal food. The Hymenoptera are distributed among parasitic species 

 (2 percent), ants (3 percent), and miscellaneous (1 percent). In its 

 partiality for ants the white-throated sparrow resembles the savanna 

 sparrow. Of the beetles eaten, ground-beetles, leaf -beetles, click- 

 beetles, weevils (Rhynchophora), and members of the families His- 

 terid?e and Scarab?eid?e enter most frequently into the diet. The Scar- 

 abseidse include principally dung-beetles {Aphodius), but occasionally 

 the larger species, such as the May-beetle or rose-beetle, are eaten. 

 The depredations of the latter on vineyard and flower garden are 

 seldom disturbed by birds, on which account the service done by 

 the white-throated sparrow in eating it has added value. Weevils 

 furnish the greater part of the beetle food, and during Maj^ when 

 they are eaten more freely than at any other time, form 15 percent 

 of the food. 



The same absence of Orthoptera (grasshoppers, etc. ) from the food 

 is noticeable in the investigation of the white-throat that has been 

 noted in the case of its congener — the white-crown. These insects 

 were selected by only 2 of the 217 birds examined. Professor Aughey, 

 however, found that 5 individuals which he examined had devoured 

 an average of 18 Rocky Mountain locusts apiece,^ and a captive white- 

 throat kept in the laborator^^ of the Biological Survey ate grasshoppers 



' Birds of Pennsylvania, revised ed., p. 337. 1890. 



■^ First Ann. Report U. S. Entomological Commission. App. II, p. 31, 1878. 



