TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 89 



cent; vegetable matter, 7 per cent, besides wild fruits. The food of 

 wrens is 98 per cent insectivorous the year round, only 2 per cent 

 being vegetable. They feed on bugs, spiders, caterpillars, flies, and larvae 

 wherever found. 



All thrushes' food consists of beetles, bugs, spiders, grasshoppers, 

 caterpillars, earthworms, and a few seeds and wild fruits. Of the 

 orioles' food caterpillars constituted 34 per cent of that found in 173 

 stomachs, other insects being bugs, beetles, ants, wasps, spiders, and 

 grasshoppers, besides larvas and bark-lice. Of 238 stomachs of the 

 meadowlark examined, animal food — that is, insects — constituted 73 

 per cent; vegetable matter, 27 per cent, 14 per cent of which was hard 

 weed seeds and grain. They consume cutworms by thousands, also 

 wireworms and beetles. 



The bee martin, or kingbird, is a great feeder on insects. Out of 281 

 stomachs collected from different parts of the country, only 14 honey 

 bees were found, the majority being drones. The great bulk of food of 

 this species is largely noxious species of beetles (the May and click 

 varieties), wireworms, wasps, weevils, crickets, and grasshoppers. All 

 the flycatchers, of which there are many species, are among the most 

 beneficial of the birds frequenting orchards. 



Grosbeaks feed largely on vegetable matter, buds of forest trees, and 

 wild fruits. Of insects they consume corn-worms, beetles, caterpillars of 

 all forms, and in Colorado they have been known to clean out the nox- 

 ious potato beetles when nothing else would touch them, bringing their 

 young to the patches to feed as soon as they could fly. 



Bluejays, we find, have a hard name, but from 292 stomachs exam- 

 ined, animal matter comprised 24 per cent and vegetable matter 76 per 

 cent of this bird's diet. Only five stomachs had any remains of small 

 birds, or egg shells. Besides this food the jay eats mice, salamanders, 

 snails, beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, more than 19 per cent of 

 their whole food consisting of harmful insects. In the fall months 

 their food consists of from 64 to 83 per cent of acorns. 



While many of our birds are known to now and then eat of our 

 fruits, if we carefully compare the benefits accruing from their work the 

 balance will easily be in their favor. Why should we not give them 

 some protection? Thousands are being killed every month by one 

 means or another, and they threaten to soon become scarce about our 

 homes and orchards. One instance I wish to give as showing the 

 wholesale destruction of bird life for the San Francisco market, which 

 is now 'going on: In a letter to Mr. Chester Barlow, Secretary of the 

 Cooper Ornithological Club, from Mr. W. B. Sampson of Stockton, and 

 dated February 14, 1898, Mr. Sampson states that on the day before he 

 happened along a levee some distance from the city, where the brush is 

 inhabited by thousands of small birds. He noticed that two Italians 



