GRAIN EATEN BY THE ROSEBREAST. 37 



GRAIN. 



Grain composes 5.09 percent of the food of the 176 rose-breasted 

 grosbeaks examined, the cereals selected being corn, wheat, and oats. 

 The bird has been accused of injuring each of these products, and 

 stomach examinations lend support to the complaints. 



Com. — Part of the damage to corn is of an unusual nature. H. S. 

 Giddings, of Sabula, Iowa, writing about the same grosbeaks men- 

 tioned above as injurious to peas, says : 



From the time they arrived until their departure they fed continuously on 

 corn from a crib on my place. * * * Sometimes as many as 10, or 12 would 

 be in the crib at once. 



The stomachs of 3 grosbeaks shot at this time contained corn, the 

 grain constituting in each case about half the contents. Notwith- 

 standing these facts, it is very doubtful if any considerable damage 

 is ever committed in the manner described, if for no other reason 

 than that the opportunity is seldom presented. Moreover, such 

 depredations are easily prevented by simple and inexpensive means, 

 such as lining the crib with wire netting and closing the doors when 

 not in use. These precautions will not only keep out wild birds, but 

 also rats, mice, and chickens, which animals undoubtedly destroy 

 vastly more stored grain than all native birds together. 



A small quantity of the corn eaten by the rose-breasted grosbeak 

 may be pilfered from the growing crop, one bird taken in Pennsyl- 

 vania in July having eaten enough corn to form 8 percent of its 

 stomach contents, and one from Illinois in September consumed 50 

 percent. There is no way of determining positively whether this 

 grain was crop corn or waste ; but if only 2 grosbeaks out of 176 take 

 corn from the ear, there is no cause for alarm. The corn obtained 

 in May by 2 other rosebreasts from Illinois and Minnesota may have 

 been either seed or waste. 



Oats. — Seed oats may sometimes be devoured by grosbeaks. E. A. 

 Mearns says : a 



Where fields newly sown with the cereal grains are convenient to its wood- 

 land retreats, it * * * will collect in large flocks, and resort there con- 

 tinually, as long as there is a grain of seed to be had. 



As this statement refers to a locality in New York where the rose- 

 breast occurs only from May to September, the crop in question must 

 be oats. 



This grain was eaten by 5 of the birds examined, 4 of which may 

 have obtained it from newly sown fields, but even this trifling injury 

 to the crop may be prevented and other advantages secured by drill- 

 ing. The fifth grosbeak, which was collected in Illinois in July, prob- 

 ably obtained the oats it devoured from standing grain. 



oBull. Essex Inst, 12, 1880, p. 21. 



