130 
The Food of Birds. 
fimetarms appear among the Scarabaeidae. The com- 
mencement of the fruit season is here distinctly discern- 
ible. Twenty-two per cent, of the food of these birds con- 
sists of raspberries, five per cent, of strawberries and 
one per cent, of cherries, making a total of twenty-nine 
per cent, of fruits. Fragments of corn and oats amount 
to nineteen per cent. 
July. 
But seven birds were examined in July; all from the 
vicinity of Normal. All of these had eaten insects, which 
amounted to only about one-fourth of the food. Both 
ants and caterpillars were present in trifling quantity. 
Only about half as many Coleoptera had been taken as in 
the month preceding. Hemiptera and Orthoptera each 
make up four per cent, of the food, and Arachnida and 
Myriapoda are entirely wanting. Carabidae stand at four 
per cent., as in June, spring-beetles continue at three 
and snout-beetles amount to two per cent. Evarthrus 
colossus was found among the Carabidae. Heteraspis pu- 
bescens, Colaspis hrunnea and Diabrotica 12 -guttata rep- 
resented the plant-beetles. The fruits of July amounted 
to sixty-two per cent, of the food — all blackberries. 
Twelve per cent, consisted of fragments of corn. 
August. 
Twelve birds were shot in August, all from McLean 
county, at various times in the month from the 7th to the 
30tli. The insect averages rally again in August, return- 
ing now to fifty-one per cent. Hymenoptera rise to four- 
teen per cent. — the highest average of the season — a fact 
due doubtless to the swarming of certain species of ants 
at tins time of the year. 
Caterpillars amount to eleven per cent, of the food ; 
Coleoptera fall away to ten, and all but one of these are 
Carabidae. Cratacanthus dubius seems to be especially 
abundant in the later summer and early autumnal 
months. Four per cent, of the food of these birds con- 
sists of this species, and it has likewise been found prom- 
inent in the food of the bluebird and the catbird at the 
same season of the year. A small percentage of snout- 
