JTTNCO. 81 
abated — it will be found, often in company with other winter sparrows. 
on the sunny hillsides which bristle with ragweed, cracking the » 
that are spread on the snow-covered ground. 
The food habits of the junco are such as commend it highly to the 
farmer. An examination has been made of 299 stomachs, collected 
during every month in the year except May. They were secured 
chiefly along the Atlantic seaboard, but a fairly large number were 
obtained in the central part of the country and California. 
The food for the year as a whole, as indicated by these stomachs, 
consists of animal matter 22 percent and vegetable matter 78 per- 
cent. The animal matter is distributed as follows: Orthoptera and 
Lepidoptera. each 2 percent: Hymenoptera. 3 percent; Coleoptera. 
6 percent; miscellaneous insects, largely Hemiptera. 7 percent: and 
spiders, with a few snails and other invertebrates. _ percent. 
It will be convenient to consider the summer and winter feeding 
habits separately. The summer diet, as far as can be judged by the 
contents of 55 stomachs collected from June to August, inclusive, 
mainly in the mountainous regions of California and on Roan Moun- 
tain. North Carolina, is 49 percent animal matter and 51 percent 
vegetable matter. Insects of the useful class comprise 1 percent of 
ground-beetles and 5 percent of parasitic Hymenoptera. Insects 
belonging to the injurious category amount to 25 percent of the total 
fond and are distributed as follows: Leaf-beetles. 2 percent: weevils 
(Rhynchophora), 8 percent: caterpillars. -4 percent: grasshoppers. 5 
•nt: and miscellaneous insects, largely true bugs, leaf-hoppers 
(Jassidae), click-beetles, and longicom beetles (Gerambycidae 
percent. Neutral insects, mainly small dung-beetles, ants, and other 
insects of little or no economic importance, amount altogether to 1*3 
percent of the food. 
The vegetable food consists of various seeds, -i'" 1 percent of the 
total, and wild fruits. - percent of the total. The seed matter is 
distributed as follows: Grass seed. 5 percent: polygonum >eed. B per- 
cent: violet seed. 9 percent, and miscellaneous seeds, mainly thofl 
leep-sorrel, wood sorrel, purslane, and chickweed. 2 percent. 
The remaining vegetable food is composed of wild fruit, and includes 
blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and elderberries. 
The summer feeding habits of the junco. although of a character 
highly creditable to the species, are not of much economic impor- 
tance, since the habitat of this bird during the breeding season is 
largely beyond agricultural areas. But when the bird migrates to 
fertile districts and extends over the whole of the United States in 
autumn to remain until spring, it becomes a most important and 
Dsefnl bird. The animal food at this time, which is of the usual char- 
acter, is too small to be important. The vegetable food, which con- 
stitutes 91 percent of the diet, may be conveniently divided into 
three nearly equal parts; the first of which is largely timothy, broom 
