TVHITE-THKOATED SPARROW. 73 
summer and winter ranges of the white-throated sparrow are. to 
a considerable extent, within agricultural life zones. Its economic 
relations are therefore more important. 
Dr. B. H.Warren states that during spring in Pennsylvania he 
has seen white-throated sparrows feeding on buds and blossoms of 
beech, maple, and apple. 1 These observations have not yet been con- 
firmed in the laboratory examination of stomachs. While in the field 
in May I have noted white-throated sparrows eating the fruit of elm 
trees, but have never found them damaging buds or blossoms. 
Two hundred and seventeen stomachs, collected during every month 
in the year except June, have been examined. Most of these stom- 
achs were collected inXewYork and Pennsylvania, but a large num- 
ber came from Iowa, Minnesota, Georgia, and Texas, and some from 
New Brunswick. The food for the year, as a whole, as indicated by 
stomach contents, consists of 19 percent animal matter and 81 percent 
vegetable matter. Of the vegetable food, 3 percent is grain, 50 per- 
cent weed seed, and the remainder chiefly wild fruit. 
The insect food resembles that of many other species in general 
character, but some interesting differences appear when it is viewed 
in detail. Hymenoptera constitute 6 percent of the year's food; 
Coleoptera, 5 percent; Heteroptera and Diptera, taken together, 3 
percent, and Lepidoptera, 3 percent, the customary quota of spiders, 
millipedes, and snails supplying the remaining 2 percent of the ani- 
mal food. The Hymenoptera are distributed among parasitic species 
(2 percent), ants (3 percent), and miscellaneous (1 percent). In its 
partiality for ants the white-throated sparrow resembles the savanna 
sparrow. Of the beetles eaten, ground-beetles, leaf-beetles, click- 
beetles, weevils (Rhynchophora), and members of the families His- 
teridae and Searabaeida? enter most frequently into the diet. The Scar- 
aba^ida? include principally dung-beetles (Aphodius), but occasionally 
the larger species, such as the May-beetle or rose-beetle, are eaten. 
The depredations of the latter on vineyard and flower garden are 
seldom disturbed by birds, on which account the service done by 
the white-throated sparrow in eating it has added value. Weevils 
furnish the greater part of the beetle food, and during May, when 
they are eaten more freely than at any other time, form 15 percent 
of the food. 
The same absence of Orthoptera (grasshoppers, etc.) from the food 
is noticeable in the investigation of the white-throat that has been 
noted in the case of its congener — the white-crown. These insects 
were selected by only 2 of the 217 birds examined. Professor Aughey, 
however, found that 5 individuals which he examined had devoured 
an average of 18 Rocky Mountain locusts apiece, 2 and a captive white- 
throat kept in the laboratory of the Biological Survey ate grasshoppers 
1 Birds of Pennsylvania, revised ed., p. 237. 1890. 
First Ann. Report U. S. Entomological Commission. App. II. p. 31, 1878. 
