ing the grass as any Robin or Song Sparrow might do, snapxjing 

 up everything which came in their path." 



The most common kind of food for the nestlings was ''green 

 worms," making up about 17% of the whole. The term is, of 

 course, very indefinite, and refers to any soft-bodied, worm-like 

 larva which is green in color. But since probably all of these 

 larvae were feeding on the green foliage of one kind of another, 

 their destruction must on the whole be beneficial, economically. 



Spiders constituted next to the most abundant kind of food 

 for the nestlings. At visit No. 264 the female bird brought a 

 spider to the nest which was of a specias that I had noticed fre- 

 quently in the beaks of the parent birds, as well as often in the 

 woods. I was able to take this specimen from the beak of the 

 parent bird and preserve it for later identification. In due time 

 this specimen was identified by Mr. J. H. Emerton as Epeira 

 trivittata Keyserling. This is a very common round web spider, 

 whose web is stretched between the branches of the trees at all 

 heights up to fifteen or twenty feet, and would thus be readily 

 found by the foliage gleaning Vireos. 



Shortly after visit No. 90 the male came to the nest ^\dth a 

 small snail, and had it in the mouth of White, when I made an 

 effort to secure the specimen for identification ; my manipulation 

 of the forceps at his beak frightened him away, carrying the 

 specimen with him, thus thwarting my purpose. Again at visit 

 No. 102 the female came with two shells in her beak ; in order to 

 delay the feeding so that I might have an opportunity to identify 

 the specimens, I made a movement to attract her attention, which, 

 however, drove her away ; but not until I had positively identified 

 both shells as Succmea avara. 



At visit No. 267 the female brought another Succinea avara, 

 and I made a determined effort to secure it with my forceps, 

 but failed, and it was fed to White. 



CowBiRD Behavior 



It was hoped to make the beha\dor of the nestliag Cowbird the 

 special feature of this study; but its early disappearance frus- 

 trated this purpose to some extent. The young Cowbird was 

 in the nest at eight o'clock p. m. on July 9th but was missed in 

 the afternoon of the next day. 



We never knew whether an accident befell the Cowbird, or 



31 



