14 
The Regulative Action of Birds upon Insect Oscillations. 
other seeds. The Lepidoptera (twenty-seven per cent.) were 
nearly all the larvas of Fephelodes violans. Of the Coleoptera 
(eleven per cent.), part were Anomala and Elateridae, and the 
remainder consisted of specimens of Tanymecus confertus , eaten 
by one of the birds. A grasshopper had also been taken by one, 
making ten per cent, of the food; and traces of Hemiptera were 
recognized. 
Icterus galbula, L. Baltimore Oriole. 
Not common. Three were shot. These had fed only on 
insects, — Lepidoptera forty per cent, and Coleoptera sixty per 
cent., the former all canker-worms, and the latter chiefly Anomala 
binotata (fifty per cent.). Six per cent, of Cerambycidae and two 
of Rhynchophora should also be mentioned. 
Icterus spurius. L. Orchard Oriole. 
This bird was common in 1881, although but two were shot; 
but was not noticed the next year. More than three-fourths of 
the food of these consisted of canker-worms, and other caterpil- 
lars made an additional twenty per cent., leaving but three per 
cent, for ants. 
Quiscalus purpureus ^eneus, Bartr. Bronzed Grackle. 
Wandering specimens of the grackle were seen, and a few 
were apparently roosting in the trees at night. But three were 
shot, all of which had fed chiefly upon corn, which amounted to 
sixty-two per cent, of their food. Fragments of a crawfish were 
found in the stomach of one. Half the thirty per cent, of Cole- 
optera were Carabidae, including a specimen of Calosoma calidum , 
and the remainder were nearly all Lucanidaa (Dorcus, eight per 
cent.) and undetermined Elateridae. 
(Summary of the Family. 
The five species of this family mentioned were represented by 
but eleven specimens, which, taken together, were found to have 
made two-thirds of their food of insects, the remaining third of corn 
and wheat with a few seeds of weeds. Canker-worms, eaten by 
the orioles, only amounted to one-fourth of the food of the whole, 
