The Food of Birds. 
149 
February. 
The ten birds of this month were all shot at Normal, 
111., from the 24th to the 29th of the month, in the present 
year. These stomachs, with those obtained from Galena, 
in early March, represent the first food of the season. 
The record opens with a bird shot on the 24th. Thirty 
per cent, of its food had been grass-eating cutworms, for- 
ty per cent, crickets ( Gryllus abbreviates), five per cent. 
Ichneumonidae ( Arenetra nigrita Cress.), and twenty-five 
per cent, the larvae of the two-lined soldier-beetle ( Tele - 
phorus bilineatus). Now, the ichneumons are doubtless 
parasitic, although about the habits of the genus Arene- 
tra, I have at present but little specific information ; and 
the soldier-beetles are reported by Prof. Riley and others 
to be highly useful insects, noted especially for the de- 
struction of the apple-worm and the eggs of grasshop- 
pers.* 
Taking the month together, we find that the most im- 
portant elements of the food were cutworms and ichneu- 
mons — twenty-four per cent, of the former to twenty-two 
per cent, of the latter. The larvae of the soldier-beetles 
amount to eight per cent., locusts (chiefly the young of 
Tragocephala viridifasciata ) to nine per cent., Carabid 
beetles and their larvae (including Amara and Anisodac- 
tylus) to five per cent., Pentatomidae or soldier-bugs 
(chiefly Euschistus servus) to seven per cent., spiders to 
four per cent, and Iulidae (thousand-legs) to three per 
cent. Other items are, two per cent, caterpillars of Arc- 
tians ( Callimorpha lecontei), four per cent, crickets, and 
nine per cent, dung-beetles (Aphodius fimetarius and A. 
inquinatus). The ichneumons, Carabid beetles, soldier- 
bugs and spiders thus make up forty-six per cent, of 
beneficial insects, while the caterpillars and Ortlioptera 
amount to but forty-one per cent, of injurious species. 
Or, if we drop the Pentatomidae from the former cate- 
gory, on account of the supposed trifling injuries to veg- 
etation done by some of them (hence often called “plant- 
bugs”), the figures will stand, beneficial insects thirty- 
nine, to forty-one injurious. 
* See 4th R 2 p. State Ent. Mo., p. 29, and Rep. U. S. Ent. Comm., 1877, 
p. 302. 
