I 
The Food of Birds. 
117 
terminable. Minor items among the Coleoptera are the 
water-beetles, including Colymbetes biguttatus and an 
undetermined species of Hydrobius. The Hemiptera 
amounted to only one per cent, of the food, and all of 
these were Pentatomidae. The Ortlioptera, including a 
few specimens of the white cricket (QEcanthus) and of 
the common spring grasshoppers, amounted in all to four 
per cent, of the food. A single specimen of the young of 
the walking-stick ( Diapheromera femorata) had been 
eaten by one of the birds. Spiders amounted to three per 
cent, of the food. The Myriapoda included several speci- 
mens of Litliobius and three species of Polydesmus, viz. : 
P. serrat-us , P. virginiensis and P. canadensis. 
It will be seen at once that the striking feature of the 
food of this bird in May, as compared with that of the 
robin, is the abundance of ants and crane-flies, a charac- 
teristic which we shall find persistent until the opening of 
the fruit season revolutionizes the food of both species. 
June. 
. The food of June undergoes so complete a change when 
the small fruits begin to ripen that the record may best 
be given in two divisions, the first of which agrees close- 
ly with that of May, while the second approaches more 
nearly to that of July. In the first part of the month ants 
were eaten by the nineteen birds examined in about the 
same ratio as in May. Crane-flies appear in the food only 
in the early days of the month. Among the Coleoptera 
the principal peculiarity is the greater importance of the 
May-beetles (Lachnosterna). A few strawberries and 
cherries were eaten by this bird previous to the fifteenth 
of the month, but these fruits were not taken in sufficient 
amount materially to influence the averages. After the 
seventeenth, however, only one per cent, of the food con- 
sisted of ants, and only about three per cent, of caterpil- 
lars. The May-beetles disappear almost entirely, and the 
other insect elements are reduced to equal insignificance, 
while the same fruits constitute by far the larger part of 
the food. These include currants and cherries in about 
equal parts, and about twice as many raspberries as of 
both the others taken together. Treating the food of the 
