chtpp: rbow. 7 7 
seen it preying on the army worm ; ! Dr. Weed, quoting Miss Soule, 
« that it attacks the moths of the forest tent caterpillar, 2 an 
- which has recently seriously damaged the maple-sugar industry 
-w England; and many observers have stated that it feeds on 
cankerworms and cabbage worms. I have never seen chipping spar- 
- feeding on cabbage worms, although 1 have frequently watched 
them hopping about among or near cabbages which were badly 
~ed with worms. 
Mr. Henry W. Olds states that a chipping sparrow visited his pea 
* patch and busily fed on the pea lice which were seriously injuring the 
vines. I have found chipping sparrows at Marshall Hall, Md., feed- 
ing on the same insect. This pest (Neciarophora destructor) is com- 
paratively new to science, having been first described in 1899, but 
during that year it caused a loss to the pea crop of Maryland of 
63 • . 
Audubon states that the chipping sparrow takes berries, 4 and Mr. 
Percy Moore, of Philadelphia, reports that it feeds on wild cherries. 
Prof. F. E. L. Beal says that he has occasionally seen it taking a few 
cultivated cherries. Mr. F. C. Kirkwood calls attention to a very 
peculiar habit it has of sipping the sap of grapevines. 5 
Two hundred and fifty stomachs have been examined, collected 
from March niber, and throughout the country both in the 
rincipally, however, from New England to Virginia 
and from the S - of Kansas. Iowa, Illinois, and California, the 
greater part of the western chipping sparrows coming from the last- 
nani> Si More collections were made in summer and early 
autumn than at any other season. Of the contents of these stomachs 
the total animal food, consisting of insects with an occasional spider, 
amounts to 38 percent; the vegetable food to 62 percent. Of the 
g able food, 4 percent is grain, principally o. -reent grass 
seed; and 10 percent other seeds, such as clover, ragweed, amaranth, 
wood sorrel, lambVquarters, purslane, chickweed, knot weed, and 
black bindweed. Twenty-six percent of the grass seed is crab-grass 
and pig^ _ as, chiefly the former, the rest consisting of timothy, 
orchard grass, and other grasses. The seeds of crab-grass, whenever 
they can be obtained, form the most important part of the diet. Dur- 
\ igust there were collected a dozen chipping sparrows 
that were feediug in a flock amid some crab-grass and other weeds 
h were getting the upper hand in a small garden, about an acre 
in extent, and it was found that the stomach of every one of the birds 
1 Penn. Age. Kept. 1896. 
■ Br/ No. 73 y . H. Coll. Agr. Expt. Sta., p. 131, 1900. 
' Pro . Eleventh Ann. Meeting Assn. Economic Entomologists, pp. 94-99, 1899. 
* Birds of America, Vol. HI. p. *), 1841. 
3 Birds of Maryland, p. 335, 1.^95. 
