120 
The Food of Birds. 
less, of the commencement of the autumnal multiplica- 
tion of this order which will he found reflected to a very 
notable degree in the food of the bluebird further on. 
Only traces of spiders and thousand-legs were discov- 
ered. Fifty-four parts of fruit were eaten, sixteen of 
which were wild. Nearly all of the garden fruits were 
blackberries — cherries constituting but three per cent, of 
the food for the month. 
September. 
The catbird leaves our latitude in September, and only 
six specimens were secured — all of them on or before the 
17th, in the vicinity of Normal and Bloomington. The 
chief peculiarity of the food of the month is the substitu- 
tion of cherries and wild fruits for blackberries. Seven- 
ty-six per cent, of the food at this time consisted of fruits, 
all wild but the grapes, which amounted to fourteen per 
cent. Elderberries, wild cherries and the fruit of the Vir- 
ginia creeper were the most important elements. Carniv- 
orous thousand-legs amounted to three per cent, of the 
food and insects proper to twenty-one per cent., nearly 
half of which were ants. But few caterpillars had been 
eaten by these birds, and only seven per cent, of Coleop- 
tera — five per cent, being Harpalidae. The lower orders 
of insects were conspicuous only by their absence. 
We are now prepared for the review of the general av- 
erages of the season, and the indications which these af- 
ford of the economic value of the catbird. Taking the rec- 
ord of the year together as found in the vertical column 
at the right of the table on pages 125, 126, 127, the seven- 
ty birds of the species examined are found to have eaten 
forty-three parts of insects, two parts of spiders and 
harvestmen, three parts of thousand-legs and fifty-two 
parts of fruits. Only thirty-three per cent, of the food 
consisted of tame fruits, four per cent, being raspberries, 
twenty per cent., blackberries, one per cent, currants, 
four per cent, tame cherries, one per cent, strawberries 
and three per cent, grapes. Scrutinizing more closely the 
details of the insect food, we find that ants form twelve 
per cent, of the total for the season ; Diptera, chiefly 
crane-flies, about five per cent.; Lepidoptera six per 
