gg Bird Day Book 



The most noticeable peculiarity in the food is that no one item 

 is greatly in excess of others, while in the case of the yellow-billed 

 cuckoo, for instance, caterpillars constitute more than half the food. 

 With the thrasher the largest item is made up of beetles (18.14 per 

 cent). A few of these (4.83 per cent) are of useful species, mostly 

 predacious ground bettles. Others (13.32 per cent) are of a more 

 or less harmful character, the great bulk being May beetles and 

 weevils, or snout beetles. Among the latter is the notorious cotton 

 boll weevil, found in six stomachs. May beetles, when in the grub 

 stage, injure roots of grass and other plants. The 12-spotted cucum- 

 ber beetle, another destructive pest, also was found in many stom- 

 achs. Beetles are eaten regularly throughout the year, although a 

 little more from March to June than in other months. 



Ants form a surprisingly small percentage of the yearly food 

 (1.88 per cent) when the fact is considered that the thrasher gets 

 most of its food upon the ground, where most ants live. The small 

 destruction of bees and wasps (0.93 per cent) is not surprising, as 

 the thrasher is hardly agile enough on the wing to catch such swift 

 fliers. These three insects, however, are very evenly distributed 

 throughout the year, each month showing a small percentage. Bugs, 

 mostly stinkbugs with a few negro bugs, make up 1.54 per cent and 

 are very regularly distributed. One bird taken in Illinois had eaten 

 chinch bugs, but none were found in stomachs from farther south. 

 Flies (1.76 per cent) are evidently not a favorite food of the 

 thrasher, and nearly all of those eaten were taken in November. 

 One stomach secured that month in a Mississippi cotton field was 

 filled with flies except 6 per cent of fruit of "French mulberries"; 

 the bird had probably found a colony of flies hibernating in a crevice 

 and had devoured the whole lot. 



Caterpillars (5.95 per cent) stand next to beetles in the thrash- 

 er's food, and are taken every month except November ; that month, 

 however, is represented by only five stomachs. Grasshoppers and 

 crickets would seem to be very available to the thrasher, as the 

 insects live on the ground, where also the birds get their food ; but, 

 unlike the meadowlark, these birds do not esteem grasshopper diet 

 enough to go out in the sunshine to seek it. This food (2.43 per 

 cent for the year) is taken to some extent every month, the maxi- 

 mum (8.5 per cent) in September. 



A few insects of other groups are picked up occasionally. In 

 all they amount to only one-fourth of 1 per cent. Spiders (0.58 



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