118 
The Food of Birds. 
month as a whole, we find that forty-nine per cent, of it 
consists of insects, three per cent, of spiders and three 
per cent, of thousand-legs, while forty-five per cent, con- 
sists of fruits, twenty-one per cent, being raspberries, 
twelve per cent, cherries, three per cent, strawberries 
and eight per cent, currants. The ants of the month 
amounted to but eleven per cent, and the craneflies to 
seven per cent. The Lepidoptera stand at ten per cent, 
and the Coleoptera at seventeen — nearly one-third of the 
latter being Carabidse. The Hemiptera made about one 
per cent, of the food and the Orthoptera two per cent. A 
single bird-louse (Mallopliaga) was found in the stomach 
of one of these birds. 
July. 
The record of this month rests upon eleven specimens, 
all from central Illinois, taken from the first to the twen- 
ty-third of the month. These indicate most clearly an 
eminent preference of the species for the small fruits, 
which composed three-fourth of their food, sixty-four 
per cent, being blackberries alone. Spiders and myria- 
pods, are found in about the same ratio as in June. The 
latter are all Iulidse, a part of them, at least, belonging 
to the genus lulus. The only Orthoptera noted were spec- 
imens of the large black cricket of the fields (Gryllus 
ahhreviatus) , eaten by a single bird. The Hemiptera al- 
most disappear, a single Thrips being the only represen- 
tative of the order. The Coleoptera amounted only to 
nine per cent, of the food, and more than two-thirds of 
these were predaceous beetles, eaten by eight birds; 
among these were noted Cicindela lecontei , Pterostichus, 
Evarthrus, Cratacantlius dubius, Aftisodactylus balti- 
morensis and Harpalus. Only a single bird had taken 
caterpillars, which constituted three per cent, of the food 
of the month. No trace of Diptera was found in the 
stomachs of these birds, and only four had eaten ants, 
which made two per cent, of the total food. Insects prop- 
er thus amounted to eighteen per cent, of the whole. 
It is clear, from the foregoing, that the catbird in mid- 
summer eats only such insects as come in its way while 
regaling itself on the smaller fruits. 
