122 
The Food of Birds. 
elements of June, July and August. Wild cherries take 
the place of these fruits in September, and grapes are 
then eaten to some slight extent. 
A comparison of the statements of this paper with the 
report published in the Transactions of the Illinois Hor- 
ticultural Society for 1879, will give some interesting re- 
sults. The former paper relates to thirty-seven speci- 
mens, obtained during the three months of May, June 
and July; and the present paper relates to seventy birds, 
taken during five months from May to September. As 
both the additional months extend the fruit season, we 
should expect the insect averages would now be smaller 
than before and that the averages of fruit would show a 
corresponding increase. This I find to be the principal 
difference between these tables. The various insect ele- 
ments stand in about the same ratio to each other as be- 
fore, except the ants (whose swarming in autumn ac- 
counts for their greater prominence in the food), and the 
Hemiptera and Orthoptera. The first of these .orders 
figures more largely in the general averages for 1880 be- 
cause this was a “chinch-bug year” in central Illinois; 
and the second because grasshoppers, locusts and crick- 
ets greatly increase in numbers during the later months. 
In the earlier table, insects amount to fifty-six per cent, 
of the food ; in the later, only to forty-three ; ants are 
respectively ten and twelve, Diptera thirteen and five, 
Lepidoptera ten and seven, Coleoptera nineteen and 
twelve, Carabidae eight and five, leaf-chafers four and 
three, snout-beetles three and one, Hemiptera one and 
two, Orthoptera two and three, Arachnida three and two, 
Myriapoda six and three and the edible fruits twenty- 
seven and forty-one. 
The Catbird and the Robin. 
In order to a more exact comparison of the food-habits 
of the catbird and the robin, I have computed the aver- 
ages of the principal elements of the robin’s food for the 
period of five months covered by the catbird’s record, 
and give these here alternately with the corresponding 
averages of the catbird. The ants eaten by the robin 
