The Food of Birds. 
153 
June. 
In June ten birds — one from Mt. Carroll, the others 
from Normal — had taken a somewhat unusual diet. The 
ratio of spiders (eighteen per cent.) falls a little short of 
that for May, but an examination of the notes shows that 
here, too, a single bird had eaten nothing else. Ants rise 
suddenly from two per cent, in May, to twenty per cent, 
in June, taken by six of the birds. Most of these, how- 
ever, were of the winged forms, and their number is evi- 
dently due to the same cause which rendered the Aphodii 
so abundant in April. Three of the birds of June proved, 
to my surprise, to have eaten raspberries, and one goose- 
berries— these fruits amounting to eight per cent, of the 
food of the month. No cutworms were recognized in 
June, but measuring-worms (Phalsenidae) replaced them, 
composing six per cent, of the food. While all the cut- 
worms found in any month whose food was at all distin- 
guishable had eaten nothing but grass — or endogenous 
foliage, more accurately speaking — several of these 
Phalsenidae had been feeding on net-veined leaves. The 
Harpalinse (six per cent.) include Evarthrus sp., Pter- 
ostichus lucuhlandus and Anisodactylus baltimorensis. 
June-beetles (Phyllophaga) had been eaten by one bird, 
and a Melanotus, a curculio, and a long-horn beetle (Tet- 
raopes tetraophthalmus ,) each by one. Pentatomidae 
reach five per cent., chiefly Hymenarcys nervosa, and 
Orthoptera fall to three per cent. The excess of ants is 
therefore taken, like the excess of Aphodii, from the 
caterpillars and grasshoppers. 
The averages of beneficial and injurious species stand 
thirty per cent, to twenty-six per cent., respectively. Re- 
garding ants, I find such conflict of opinion among good 
authorities, that I am not able to give them a definite 
place on either side of the line. The injury to fruits is 
probably too insignificant to be taken into account, ex- 
cept as evidence that the species is not strictly insectiv- 
orous, even in midsummer. 
July. 
The nine birds of this month were all shot in central 
Illinois, during four successive years. Besides the return 
