The Food of Birds. 
109 
I have now to add what we may regard as a decisive 
crucial test of the conclusion implied above. In the paper 
^ quoted from, I gave the details and a summary of the 
food of forty-one robins in a table similar to those pre- 
sented in this paper, and a comparison of the averages of 
that table with those of the table on pages 112, 113, 114, 
115, may be easily made. While any serious differences 
in the averages of these two tables would not necessarily 
condemn the later one, but, at the worst, would leave its 
sufficiency in doubt, a substantial agreement of the two 
would be conclusive proof of the correctness of both. It 
is incredible that the averages of a hundred and fourteen 
specimens should agree essentially with those of forty- 
one, unless both were framed upon identical principles 
and were sufficiently true to the facts for all practical 
purposes. I will, therefore, place the principal averages 
of these tables side by side, premising that the later table 
not only includes nearly three times as many specimens 
as the earlier, but covers two months’ more time. 
The figures for the first and second tables, taken alter- 
nately, are as follows: Insects, seventy per cent, and 
sixty-five per cent.; caterpillars, eighteen per cent, and 
seventeen per cent. ; Diptera, eighteen per cent, and sev- 
enteen per cent. ; Coleoptera, nineteen per cent, and 
eighteen per cent. ; Carabidae, seven per cent, and five per 
cent. ; Scarabseidse, four per cent, and seven per cent. ; 
Lachnosterna, two per cent, and three per cent. ; Elateri- 
dae, three per cent, and two per cent. ; Rhvnchophora, 
three per cent, and two per cent. ; Chrysomelidae, one per 
cent, and a trace; Hemiptera, four per cent, and three 
per cent. ; Orthoptera, eight per cent, and four per cent. ; 
Arachnida, a trace and one per cent. ; Myriapoda, two 
per cent, and a trace; garden fruits, twenty-eight per 
cent, and twenty-nine per cent. 
As I did not discriminate, in the former table, between 
tame and wild edible fruits, I have included the latter in 
both, and excluded the inedible fruits. I believe that the 
agreement in these figures, taking into account the earlier 
and later months covered by the second table, is quite re- 
markable, and can be explained only on the supposition 
that the fuller table presents a reasonably accurate sum- 
