116 
The Food of Birds. 
How indefinite and uncertain is the present knowledge 
of the food of this especially notorious species, may be 
seen by comparing my notes with the statement made in 
the recent and elaborate work of Baird, Brewer and 
Ridgway. 
“The food of the catbird is almost exclusively the lar- 
vae of the larger insects. For these it searches both 
among the bushes and the fallen leaves, as well as the 
furrows of newty-plowed fields and cultivated gardens. 
The benefit it thus confers upon the farmer and upon the 
horticulturist is very great, and can hardly he over- 
estimated. ’ ’ 
My observations of this bird cover the five months 
from May to September, inclusive. 
May. 
The specimens of this month range from the 1st to the 
31st, and from Warsaw and Normal, in central Illinois, 
to Savanna, McHenry and Waukegan in the northern 
part of the State. Five of the birds of the month were 
taken in northern Illinois and seventeen in the central 
part of the State. All of these birds had eaten insects,, 
which amounted to eighty-three per cent, of the food, 
the remainder consisting of spiders, three per cent. ; 
thousand-legs (Myriapoda), seven per cent.; and seven 
per cent, of the dry berries of the sumach (Rhus glabra). 
Among the insects were about equal ratios of ants, 
crane-flies and beetles, the first composing eighteen per 
cent, of the food, the second nineteen and the third twen- 
ty-three. Caterpillars formed twelve per cent, of the 
food, and about one-sixth of these were distinctly recog- 
nizable as cutworms (Noctuidae). More than one-third 
of the beetles were Carabidae including specimens of Pla- 
tynus and Harpalus pennsylv aniens. Only one per cent, 
of the food consisted of Scarabseidae, and five per cent of 
snout-beetles (Rhynchopliora). Nearly all of the latter be- 
longed to the section Brevirostres, in which are found 
few of the injurious species of the group. Those recog- 
nized were Epiccerus imhricatus and I thy cents novebo- 
racensis. Among the one per cent, of plant-beetle (Cliry- 
somelidffi) only Gastrophysa polygoni was specifically de- 
