'.H) THE RELATION OF SPARROWS TO AGRICULTURE. 
robin is of tin* New Rngland lawn, or the mocking bird of the Florida 
plantat ion. The song consists of a scries of monotonous insect notes, 
repeated insistently from early morn lill Late afternoon, resembling 
somewhat tin- heat-suggestive torn.**, of the grasshopper. The nesl is 
placed on the ground like those of many of the sparrows, but the 
eggs are wholly unlike mosl sparrow eggs; they are pale blue, and 
might easily be mistaken for those of the bluebird. 
In food habits the dickcissel is particularly interesting. One hun- 
dred and fifty-two stomachs have been examined, collected, however, 
only during the somewhal limited period from May to August. The 
winter food is. therefore, not shown by these examinations, but Nehr- 
ling stales that during that season the bird feeds on grass seed and 
weed seed. 1 Most of the stomachs examined in the laboratory were 
collected in Kansas, but some came from Minnesota. Wisconsin, and 
Texas. They contained animal matter to the extent of 70 percent 
(insects, with a few spiders) and vegetable matter to the extent of 30 
percent, practically all seeds. The vegetable part of the food is 
probably not as creditable as it would have been had the stomachs 
been collected from more widely separated Localities. Most of them 
were obtained by one collector in a certain pari of Kansas where 
there were Large millet fields, and naturally the birds helped them- 
selves plentifully to this abundant supply of food. En the stomachs 
collected during August, more than a tenth of the food was millet. 
In sections where millet is not grown, however, orwheri it is sown and 
covered well, the dickcissel might prove very valuable in feeding on 
the seeds of pigeon-grass ; for in the stomachs examined, the seeds 
of millet, pigeon-grass, and closely related species formed almost 
the whole vegetable food. Some species of panicum were slightly 
represented. 
The dickcissel. like most other fringilline birds, eats grain, but its 
offenses in this way are trifling; -'5 percent of the food contained in 
the stomachs collected in .Inly was composed of oats, but this was 
the only grain (except millet ) found in any of the stomachs examined. 
The autumn and winter fare is probably composed chiefly of such 
grass and weed seeds as are usually eaten by sparrows. 
But it is the insect food that is of especial interest. This consti- 
tutes 158 percent of the diet from .May to August, and is made up as 
follows: Diptera and Heiniptera, 1 percent; Hymenoptera, 2 percent; 
Lepidoptera, s percent; Coleoptera, 15 percent; and Orthoptera, n 
percent. The Hymenoptera are almost entirely useful species; ants 
were found in .*! of the L52 stomachs examined, a small quantity 
Compared with the great numbers eaten by some of the sparrows, 
notably the white-crowned, the white-throated, and the savanna. 
The Diptera are all obscure forms, except some robber-flies that 
one bird had \\^\ on. The Ilemiptera include time bugs of both 
our Native Birds ot Son- and Beauty, Vol. II, i>. 281, L896. 
