22 BULLETIN 326, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



kek chuck chuck. A gunshot along a stream where they are common always 

 calls forth a series of protesting squawks from birds hidden in clumps of bam- 

 boos and at the edge of the water. At the end of the breeding season, after 

 the first of July, the young birds were abundant and were continually harried 

 and pursued by the adults, which flew after them in the air or ran at them on 

 the ground with open mouths, so that only in the bushes were they safe. 



Where slopes along the streams are steep, as at Comerio, the birds remain 

 close to the water. In more level localities they wander a great deal. 



Food. — Fifty-one stomachs, collected from December to August, were avail- 

 able in studying the food of this bird. In these animal matter made up 99.18 

 per cent and vegetable 0.82 per cent. Orthoptera and Crustacea form a large 

 part of the animal food, and the vegetable matter is merely rubbish. 



Animal food. — The destructive mole cricket (Scapteriscus didactylus), so 

 well known in Porto Rico, forms 54.33 per cent of the total food of the period. 

 No other bird of the Porto Rican avifauna eats them to such a large extent. 

 They appear in 31 of the stomachs examined and in some make up the entire 

 content. Three stomachs taken in January and two in August contain little 

 else, while the smallest proportion, 13 per cent, occurs in the month of June. 

 Both adults and nymphs were eaten, and one stomach contained 9 of the insects, 

 while another had 11 pairs of jaws in it. Other orthopteran remains, amount- 

 ing to 5.92 per cent, were found in 12 birds, and in 8 the remains were those 

 of Locustidse. One stomach contained a large grasshopper identified as Neo- 

 conocephalus macropterus, another a locust (Plectrotettix gregarius), and 

 another a cricket (Gryllns assimilis). Dragon-fly larvae, with the abdomen of 

 one adult and several damsel flies, were found in 12 stomachs and figure as 

 3.84 per cent of the food. Insects of other orders formed but 6.73 per cent. 

 One stomach contained a predacious diving beetle (Acilius circumscriptus) , 

 another a click beetle (Drasterius sp.), a third a small lamellicorn (Atcenius 

 gracilis), while a water scavenger beetle (Tropiste7'nns collaris) and larvae of 

 others occurred five times. Aquatic bugs were found in nine cases, water 

 bugs and back swimmers being best represented, while one water strider ( Gerris 

 marginata) was identified. Moth remains and a caterpillar represent the 

 Lepidoptera, and one bird had eaten an ant. Other insect remains comprised 

 Neuroptera in three stomachs and Diptera in three others. 



Although fish remains appeared in 16 cases, they form only 9.52 per cent of 

 the food. Small killifishes and gobies (Dormitator sp.) were found, all of small 

 size. Crustacea had been eaten by 18 of the birds, small crabs in two stomachs 

 and crawfish (Macrobrachium olfersii, Xiphocaris elongata, and others) in the 

 remainder, forming in all 14.71 per cent. Five stomachs contained lizards of 

 the genus Anolis, constituting but 1.15 per cent of the food. One was specifi- 

 cally identified as Anolis pnlchellus. Three stomachs contained bones of the 

 little tropical frogs Leptodactylus albilabris, known universally in Porto Rico 

 as ranas, and these formed 0.61 per cent. Miscellaneous animal matter, con- 

 sisting of spiders, a copepod, a marine annelid, and aquatic worms, amounted 

 to 2.37 per cent for the nine months represented. 



Vegetable food. — Vegetable matter, almost entirely accidental, was found in 

 11 stomachs. A few seeds of purslane (Portulaca oleracea) and two seeds not 

 identified had been eaten by one bird, but the large part of the vegetable matter 

 consisted of bits of grass and vegetable fiber. Only one immature bird had 

 eaten a large amount of vegetable matter. 



Owing to its unsuspicious nature and the ease with which it can be killed, 

 the green heron suffers more than any other heron at the hands of " sportsmen," 

 but the bird is of the greatest economic importance and one that should be 

 protected at all times. The small portion of rather unsavory meat on its body 



