154 
The Food of Birds. 
of the percentages of Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidop- 
tera and Arachnida to about their usual figure, we notice 
the large ratios of June-beetles (twelve per cent.) and 
Ortlioptera (twenty-seven per cent.). The latter includes 
seven per cent of Udeopsylla nigra, a large cricket-like 
locust. We find also a trace of raspberries in the food of 
two individuals. The caterpillars eaten by these birds 
were unrecognizable, except those from a single stomach, 
which Prof. Riley has identified as N ephelodes violans, 
Guen. The record of benefit and injury is now more fa- 
vorable to the species — sixty-seven per cent, of injurious 
insects, and only fourteen per cent, beneficial, the latter 
Carabidae and spiders. 
August. 
Twelve specimens were obtained in August at Normal, 
three early in the month, and the others on the 29th and 
30th. The bluebirds were at this time most abundant in 
meadows and pastures ; and the contents of their stom- 
achs indicate that the chief business of the month was the 
pursuit of locusts, crickets and grasshoppers, moths and 
caterpillars. The Ortlioptera eaten by these birds 
amounted to fifty-eight per cent, of their food, and the 
Lepidoptera to twenty-seven per cent. About half of the 
former were Gryllidae (Gryllus and Nemobius), and the 
remaining half were equally Locustidac and Acrididae 
( Xiphidium fasciatum and ensifer, Caloptenus femur- 
rub rum and bivittata, and (Edipoda sordida). Half of 
the Lepidoptera were unrecognizable moths and the re- 
mainder caterpillars — five per cent, being Noctuidae. Ants 
were about one per cent, of the food, Coleoptera only 
five per cent, (including three per cent. Harpalidae), Pen- 
tatomidae ( Ccenus delius) one per cent, and spiders six 
per cent. A few wild cherries and elderberries were the 
only fruits taken. The beneficial elements thus amounted 
to nine or ten per cent, of the food and the injurious ele- 
ments to about eighty-five per cent. 
September. 
All but one of the ten specimens upon which the account 
of the September food is based were shot at Normal, and 
