<>4 THE RELATION OF SPARROWS TO AGRICULTURE. 
Tex., contained a spider, fragments of grass, and seeds of plants of the 
composite family. 
Becanse <>f iis small numbers and irregular, local distribution, this 
sparrow is of Little economic importance. 
SHARP-TAILED SPARROW. 
i Amiiiodnilinis rainiuciifiis, A. //'/.so///, and .1. //. subrinfdtllS.) 
The sharp-tailed sparrow is so called from the fact that its tail 
feathers end in drawn-out points. With the exception of one species, 
Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow, this is a bird of the Atlantic coast, 
breeding from Nova Scotia to Maryland and possibly to Virginia, and 
ranging southward in winter as far as the Gulf of Mexico. Nelson's 
sparrow {Ammodram/us nelsoni) breeds in the fresh-water marshes of 
Illinois, Dakota, and Manitoba, but migrates in winter to the Atlantic 
and Gulf coasts. 
Fifty-one stomachs of this sparrow, collected from May to October, 
that have been examined, contained 81 percent of animal matter and 
19 percent of vegetable matter, chiefly grass seed. The animal food 
is distributed as follows: Hymenoptera, 3 percent; Coleoptera, G per- 
cent; Orthoptera, 7 percent; Lepidoptera, 14 percent: Ilemiptera, 12 
percent; Diptera, 5 percent; miscellaneous insects, 8 percent; and 
Amphipoda (sand fleas), Arachnida (spiders), and Mollusca (snails), 
26 percent. The Hymenoptera were ants and IchneumonicUe. The 
beetles were mainly Sitones and other weevils, some small ground- 
beetles, and occasionally a leaf-beetle, a rove-beetle, a tiger-beetle, 
or a dung-beetle. The Orthoptera were for the most pari short-horned 
grasshoppers (Aeridid®), but some long-horned grasshoppers and 
crickets were taken. Sixteen of the birds had eaten Lepidoptera, a 
large number in view of the fact that all the birds examined were 
adults. One-third of the Lepidoptera were eaten as imagos, and 
these were practically all noctuid moths. These insects were so com- 
minuted in the stomach contents that they could be recognized as 
moths only by pieces of their slender coiled probosces, or through a 
microscopic examination of the pulverized remains, which disclosed 
the characteristic toothed scales that make the down on their wings. 
The food habits of the sharp-tailed sparrow have many striking 
peculiarities. The bird shows a greater liking than most* species 
for bugs; and half of those eaten belong to the homopterous division 
and are for the most part leaf-hoppers (Jassidse). These insects 
are, it is true, wonderfully abundant in the moist, grassy places 
where this sparrow lives, but they are not often eaten by other birds 
that inhabit the same kinds of places. Of the true bugs — that is. 
those belonging to tin* heteropterous division — both the smaller plant- 
feeding and the predaceous species are eaten. Perhaps the most 
