BIRDS IN RELATION TO THE ALFALFA WEEVIL. 43 
sections. Being a resident all the year, in early spring it could be 
found searching diligently over the branches and trunks of cotton- 
woods or flitting through dense thickets of hawthorn or willows. 
In such environment it is quite possible for the chickadee to come in 
contact with hibernating weevils. 
Six birds were collected in April, and the weevil was present in 
the stomachs of three. Two of these contained 2 adults apiece, 
while the third had 3, and this food amounted to about 3 per cent 
of the stomach contents. 
Much of the food of these small birds was very finely divided 
and in some cases unidentifiable. In three of the six stomachs, how- 
ever, large numbers of plant lice were detected. Small lepidopterous 
cocoons also were found. 
Even though the amount of food consumed by one of these birds 
is small, there is reason to believe that the chickadees secure many 
of those adults which make their winter quarters in crevices in the 
bark of trees. 
WESTERN ROBIN. 
(Planesticus migratorius propinquus.) 
The western robin is a resident of parts of the Salt Lake Valley 
the year round, but in the more exposed situations and in the higher 
valleys surrounding Salt Lake it is a migrant and summer breeder. 
In the lower valley it becomes very abundant in April and early May, 
while a month or two later, though still common, it is most fre- 
quently found in the shade of orchards or in truck-crop areas, where 
the more thoroughly watered ground assures it a constant supply of 
one of its favorite foods — earthworms. In the valley of the Weber 
the robin was an abundant breeder and a frequent visitor to the in- 
fested alfalfa fields. 
Forty-five birds were collected in April, but four stomachs, being 
nearly empty, were not used in the computation. Three of the four 
stomachs discarded, however, showed traces of the weevil. Of the 
others, 28 contained the insects, adults in every case, which com- 
prised a little over 14 per cent of the food. This material gave an 
average of 5.63 adult weevils per bird. The best individual work 
done by any robin in this month is credited to a male, which had cap- 
tured no less than 56 of these insects. Another had eaten upward 
of 20. 
Caterpillars, many of which were cutworms, were taken with 
almost as great avidity as the weevil, occurring in 27 stomachs, but 
the larger size of these insects resulted in a much higher percentage, 
23.24. One stomach contained at least 90 young caterpillars. Click 
beetles (Elateridse) and their larvae, wireworms, were found in 18 
stomachs and amounted to 11.10 per cent of the contents. One bird 
