1909.
Sept 14 [September 14, 1909]
(No 5)
  The obvious food supply for birds in England
consists chiefly of grain and berries. The grain fields
as I have said are far more numerous, extensive and
prolific here than in any of our Atlantic States and they
account in large measure for the abundance of such
birds as Rooks, Starlings, Wood Pigeons, House Sparrows and
other kinds of Finches. The abundance of such birds as
the Song Thrush and the Blackbird is probably due, in an
equal degree, to the enormous supply of food furnished in autumn, &
through the entire winter, by the hawthorns.
These not only make up most of the growths in the
hedge rows which serves as fences for most of the fields
but they also occur nearly everywhere in the form of small
trees, standing singly or in groups in waste places such
as steeply sloping banks, the margins of rivers, old
abandoned stone quarries & the like. Indeed they are
very much more numerously represented here than any
berry-bearing tree or shrub that I know of is in New England
and just at present they are everywhere loaded with 
ripening fruit. This would seem to be more than sufficient
to support an even greater number of fruit-eating birds
than the country contains, until summer comes again.
The food supply for insect eating birds seems, on the
other hand, to be decidedly less, in both variety and
amount, than that in Eastern North America. There are
practically no grass hoppers or crickets (I have not seen one),
comparatively few Butterflies, almost no caterpillars or
measuring worms (I have not noticed any), few spiders.
The larvae of land snails are said to be numerous and of
small Diptera, gnat-like in form & size, there
is obviously an abundance.