FOOD HABITS OF SOME WINTER BIRD VISITANTS. 13 



Vegetable food. — Arthur H. Norton reports by letter that this 

 bird feeds on seeds of hemlock and spruce, but that he failed to see 

 it alight in pine trees, although this tree is abundant; nor did he 

 find pine seeds in stomachs. Other ornithologists, however, include 

 pine among the coniferous seeds eaten by this crossbill. 



As in the case of the red crossbill, conifers furnish the bulk of 

 the food supply, 76.21 per cent of the total stomach contents being- 

 seeds of such trees. Curiously enough, spruce (Piceu) and hemlock 

 (Tsuga canadensis) furnished the bulk of coniferous seeds that 

 could be identified. No pine seed was found in a condition to be 

 recognized; but as nearly 24 per cent of the food was entered as 

 unidentified " coniferous seeds," the probabilities are that a part of 

 this was pine seed. Seventeen birds taken in February had eaten 

 hemlock to the extent of nearly half their food, the remaining 50 

 per cent being coniferous seeds not further identified. Eleven 

 birds collected in September had taken nothing but spruce. One 

 October stomach was filled with the seeds of balsam fir (Abies 

 balsamea), and one taken in November contained juniper berries 

 (Juniperus sp.). As in the red crossbill, the variation in the char- 

 acter of the coniferous seeds in the diet seems to be geographical. 

 The stomachs mentioned as containing largely hemlock were col- 

 lected in a region where hemlock is the common conifer, and the 

 same is true of those which were filled with spruce. It is probably 

 this factor, rather than any aversion to pine seeds, that accounts 

 for the lack of evidence that pine seeds contribute to the food of 

 the species. 



Two birds had made their entire meal on buds, which amounted 

 to 3.84 per cent of the food. This is the only evidence found in the 

 stomachs of either species of crossbill which indicates a bud-eating 

 habit. One stomach, one-quarter filled with seeds of huckleberries 

 (Gaylussacia) and crowberries (Empetrum nigrum) , contained the 

 only fruit eaten. Five birds had devoured weed seed to the extent 

 of 9.61 per cent of the total food. Of these, three had made an 

 entire meal on sunflower seeds (Helianthus) , one had eaten ragweed 

 (Ambrosia) to the exclusion of other food, and one had partaken 

 equally of ragweed and foxtail grass (Ohaetochloa). Vegetable 

 rubbish and bits of unidentified seeds, amounting to 2.98 per cent, 

 complete the list of vegetable food. 



Animal food. — Animal food made up 6.88 per cent of the contents 

 of the 52 stomachs and was composed of caterpillars and other larvae, 

 1.68 per cent, and an unidentified animal substance, 5.20 per cent. 

 The latter was found in three stomachs collected in June in the 

 same locality. Digestion was far advanced and the material was 

 so finely comminuted that further identification was impossible. It 

 was composed probably of fragments of pupal cases of some insect. 



One of the few records of this crossbill eating freely of animal 

 food is that of W. C. Fish, 16 who observed a large flock feeding on 

 the larvae of the pitch-pine sawfly, Diprion (Neodiprion) ptnus- 

 rigida, which was very abundant at that time. According to his 

 report the birds did their work so thoroughly that the pest was rare 

 the next summer. C. J. Maynard 17 has found stomachs filled with 



18 Packard, A. S., Insects injurious to forest and shade trees, p. 759, 1890. 

 l7 Coues, Elliott, New England bird life, vol. 1, p. 220, 1883. 



