SPARROWS IX CAPTIVITY. 45 
among their pickings in such a way as to prevent germination, and 
the examination of their droppings furnished good evidence that they 
do not, as a rule, disperse weeds by such means. 
The feeding habits of several abundant and important species of 
sparrows that have not come under direct observation may be briefly 
considered in comparison with those of the species found on the three 
farms visited. The lark sparrow and dickcissel resemble the grass- 
hopper sparrow and vesper sparrow both in their large consumption 
of insect pests and in the fact that their feeding ranges comprise open 
areas of cultivated land. The dickcissel, more than the lark sparrow, 
is a bird of the vast open, treeless tracts, and in the fertile agricul- 
tural districts of this character in the central part of the United States 
appears to be more valuable, both as an insect consumer and as a 
weed destroyer, than species that stay close to cover. Prof. F. E. L. 
Beal has observed a flock of snowflakes picking the akenes from rag- 
weed plants at a time when the ground was covered Avith snow. He 
also has >een them standing in the snow and stretching on tiptoe for 
the seeds in spikes of pigeon-grass. The Lapland longspur sometimes 
feeds out in ploughed land in company with shore larks. It feeds 
mainly from the ground, rarely, if ever, from the stalk, as the snow- 
flake often does. The wide-ranging habits of all these birds increase 
their value and make them at least the equals in effectiveness of 
other sparrows that destroy a greater percentage of weed seed but are 
curtailed in their usefulness by the fact that their feeding ranges 
are limited to the immediate vicinity of protecting bushes. 
SPARROWS IX CAPTIVITY. 
During the spring of 1898 a series of feeding experiments was car- 
ried out with a song sparrow, a junco, and a white-throated sparrow. 
The birds were kept supplied with canary seed and offered different 
kinds of insects in order to ascertain their likes and dislikes and, if 
possible, correlate the results with those derived from the examination 
of the contents of stomachs. May-beetles ( Clicdepus) were frequently 
offered, but were refused in every case save one. In this exceptional 
instance the sparrows were very hungry, and the song sparrow attacked 
the hard-shelled insect and after pecking at it for ten minutes succeeded 
in breaking it open so that the soft parts could be easily obtained. 
Then all three sparrows fought for a share of these tidbits. The diffi- 
eulty of manipulating May-beetles, which form an important part of 
the insect food of such large birds as blackbirds and crows, seems to 
explain their absence from the contents of the thousands of sparrow 
stomachs examined in these investigations. 
A number of the experiments were designed to test the efficacy of 
proteetive roloration of insects against the attacks of birds. Several 
admirably protected grasshoppers (Eucoptolophus sordidus), which 
were found with the greatest difficulty on fallen oak leaves, were 
7— No. 15—01 4 
