NATURAL HISTORY. 
When abird or a wild animal is killed, that is the end of it. 
its educational and scientific value is multiplied indefinitely. 
SHOULD THE ROBIN BE KILLED OFF? 
I am in receipt of your letter of 24th, and 
am in full sympathy with your work for the 
protection of game and birds, excepting 
the English sparrow and the thieving and 
destructive robin. When the association 
will advocate and influence the sentimental 
women, and the men as well, to allow the 
penalty for killing a robin removed, I will 
contribute toward the funds of the asso- 
ciation. The robin is a marauder and a 
thief, as well as the boy or man who would 
invade your orchard, garden or lawn and 
destroy or steal your berries, cherries, etc. 
The robin you protect, but the man you 
would arrest and punish. The man or boy 
might come once, but the robin is not satis- 
fied until he has completed the destruction 
of the fruit. 
I own a farm and am fond of raising 
every luxury in the way of fruit. I share 
it with my neighbors and friends. It costs 
money and labor. After all this, the pes- 
tiferous robin comes and destroys it, and 
the owner dare not protect his own prop- 
erty. This is not in keeping with good 
sense, much less sentiment. 
The robin is not an insect-destroying bird. 
His food is the glow or ground worm, one 
of nature’s provisions to perforate the soil, 
so the moisture can penetrate to the roots 
of the growing plant. This is an estab- 
lished fact and corroborated by all horti- 
culturists. 
I say raise a fund to exterminate the 
sparrow and kill the robin, so as to dimin- 
ish the chances of losing an entire fruit 
crop by his marauding, thieving propensity. 
Every farmer in New Jersey will support 
and corroborate my statement. Kill the 
robin and the sparrow and I am with you. 
J. A. Krunkel, Pennington, N. J. 
Here is an extract from Farmers’ Bul- 
letin, No. 54, issued by the United States 
Department of Agriculture, which should 
convince Mr. Krunkel that he is wrong in 
Sie aie the wholesale destruction of the 
robin: 
_ The food habits of the robin some- 
times cause apprehension to fruit 
growers, for he is fond of cherries and 
other small fruits, especially the earlier 
varieties. For this reason many com- 
plaints have been lodged against him, 
and some persons have gone so far as 
to condemn the bird. The robin is, 
however, too valuable to be extermi- 
nated, and choice fruit can be readily 
protected from his depredations. 
143 
An examination of 330 stomachs 
shows that over 42 per cent of the 
robin’s food is animal matter, princi- 
pally insects, while the remainder is 
made up largely of small fruits and 
berries. Over 19 per cent consists of 
beetles, about 1-3 of which are ground 
beetles, taken mostly in spring and fall, 
when other insects are scarce. Grass- 
hoppers make up about I-10 of the 
whole food, but in August comprise 
over 30 per cent. Caterpillars form 
about 6 per cent, while the rest of the 
animal food, about 7 per cent, consists 
of various insects, with a few spiders, 
snails and angleworms. All the grass- 
hoppers, caterpillars and bugs, with a 
large portion of the beetles, are injuri- 
ous, and it is safe to say that noxious 
insects comprise more than 1-3 of the 
robin’s food. 
Vegetable food forms nearly 58 per 
cent of the stomach contents, over 47 
being wild fruits, and only a little more 
than 4 per cent being possibly cultivated 
varieties. Cultivated fruit amounting 
to about 25 per cent was found in the 
stomachs in June and July, but only a 
trifle in August. Wild fruit, on the 
contrary, is eaten in every month, and 
constitutes a staple food during half 
the year. No less than 41 species were 
identified in the stomachs. Of these, the 
most important were 4 species of dog- 
wood, 3 of wild cherries, 3 of wild 
grapes, 4 of greenbrier, 2 of holly, 2 
of elder; and cranberries, huckleberries, 
blueberries, barberries, service berries, 
hackberries, and persimmons, with 4 
species of sumac, and various other 
seeds not strictly fruit. 
The depredations of the robin seem 
to be confined to the smaller and earlier 
fruits, and few, if any, complaints 
have been made against it on the score 
of eating apples, peaches, pears, grapes, 
or even late cherries. By the time these 
are ripe the forests and hedges are 
teeming with wild fruits, which the bird 
evidently finds more to its taste. The 
cherry, unfortunately, ripens so early 
that it is almost the only fruit access- 
ible at a time when the bird’s appetite 
has been sharpened by a long contin- 
ued diet of insects, earthworms, and 
dried berries, and it is no wonder that 
at first the rich, juicy morsels are 
greedily eaten. In view of the fact that 
the robin takes 10 times as much wild 
as cultivated fruit, it seems unwise to 
If photographed, it may still live and 
