128 
The Food of Birds. 
a little earlier than the catbird, and, like that species, 
leaves ns in September. It is a shyer bird than either of 
the preceding, shrubbery and thickets being its favorite 
haunts and nesting-places. 
April. 
The record opens with fourteen specimens taken from 
the 8th to the 28th of April. Five of them were from cen- 
tral Illinois and nine from the northern part of the State 
in Lake and JoDaviess counties. Fifty-one per cent, of 
the food of these birds consisted of insects, two per cent, 
of spiders and six per cent, of thousand-legs. Seven per 
cent, of the food was Hymenoptera, nearly all ants ; five 
parts were caterpillars and five were grubs of Diptera — 
apparently crane-flies. Beetles make about one-fourtli 
of the food, and one-fifth of these were Carabkke. Pla- 
tynus, Agonoderus and Harpalus were the only genera 
recognized. A remarkable feature of the food was the 
occurrence of four per cent, of carrion-beetles, chiefly 
Silpha lapponica and S. americana. Thirteen per cent of 
the food of the month consisted of Scarabseidse, about 
three-fourths of these belonging to the genus Euryomia, 
which eats the leaves of fruit trees later in the season. 
A few June beetles were also taken at this time. A trace 
of wireworms, three per cent, of snout-beetles (about 
two-tliirds of them Brevirostres), one per cent, of Hemip- 
tera and two per cent. Orthoptera were the remaining 
insect elements. We come next to the distinctive feature 
of the food of this bird among all the thrushes. Forty- 
one per cent, of the food consisted of seeds and frag- 
ments of grain, of which about one-seventh was acorns 
taken by woodland specimens, and nearly all the remain- 
der corn. The appearance and odor of the contents of 
these stomachs left no doubt that the fragments men- 
tioned were picked from the excrement of animals. 
May. 
The month of May is represented also by fourteen spec- 
imens, taken at various dates from the 1st to the 27th, 
chiefly early in the month. Eleven of these were shot in 
the northern part of the State, between Galena and Wau- 
