24 BULLETIN 621, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Of the true bugs (Heteroptera) , members of the stiiikbug family 
(Pentatomidae) are most frequently found. These strong-smelling 
insects occurred in a large number of stomachs, though seldom in 
great quantities. Inasmuch as some insects of this family are pre- 
dacious, others herbivorous, and still others of varied food habits, 
an indiscriminate feeding on them would result in no great harm or 
good. Podisus, Euschistus, and Brochymena were the genera most 
frequently found. Assassin bugs (Keduviidae) are not uncommon 
articles of food. Among those identified were the wheel bug (Pri- 
onidus cristatus), two species of Melanolestes, Apiomerus crassipes, 
and Sinea sp., all of which are predacious. Of the Lygaeidae, the 
notorious chinch bug (Blissus leucopterus) only is worthy of men- 
tion. A crow collected in Kansas in November had eaten 30 of these 
pests. 
Dipt era (flies). 
Flies form a very small and, on the whole, unimportant part of 
the crow's food, constituting less than half of 1 per cent. Of these, 
craneflies (Tipulidae) are of greatest economic interest, as their 
larvae, "leather- jackets, 5 ' are destructive to grass lands. The adults, 
pupae, larvae, and eggs of these insects have been taken from crows' 
stomachs; the eggs, however, appearing in most cases to have come 
from the bodies of females which the bird had eaten and partly 
digested. Stomachs have been opened in which the contents were 
blackened by many thousands of these minute ellipsoid eggs, when 
only a trace of the fragile parent remained to tell the story whence 
they came. Muscid and sarcophagid flies, their puparia and larvae — 
the latter stages often associated with carrion — were present in many 
stomachs, and in the case of some nestlings occurred in considerable 
numbers. Marchflies (Bibionidae), horseflies (Tabanidae), robber- 
flies (Asilidae), and soldierflies (Stratiomyida?) made up the bulk of 
the remaining food classified under this order. 
Hymenoptera (ants, dees, wasps, etc.). 
Of the hymenopterous insects found in crows' stomachs, ants out- 
numbered all other groups, but even they formed a negligible portion 
of the diet, as all the Hymenoptera combined formed only about two- 
thirds of 1 per cent of the yearly sustenance. In only one stomach 
were ants present in considerable numbers, and in this several hun- 
dred composed about three-fourths of the contents. Some of the 
larger species eaten, as Camponotns herculeanns pennsylv aniens, and 
some species of the genus Formica, probably are picked up by the 
crow whenever met, but most of the smaller forms unquestionably 
are eaten accidentally with carrion or dead insects over which they 
swarm. In either case the quantity taken is so small that the eco- 
nomic considerations involved are practically negligible, 
