4T2 
ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF OUR BIRDS. 
Table shelving the kinds and amount of animal, mostly insect, food eaten by the 
Thi'ushes — continued. 
Number and Name of Speci¬ 
mens Examined. 
Of twenty-two Catbirds 
examined. 
6 
1 
1 
3 
1 
3 
1 
10 
3 
.g 
o 
O 
Classification 
OF Food. 
24 
Ants. 
1 
Caterpillar ... 
1 
Tipulid. 
3 
Beetles. 
1 
Heteroptera.. 
6 
Orthoptera... 
1 
Spider. 
15 
3 
Adult forms 
Larvee . 
2 
4 
Lepidotera... 
6 
11 
Beetles. 
Of ten Brown Thrushes 
2 
O 
a 
4 
Orthoptera... 
examined.. 
2 
a 
o 
2 
Snails. 
e 
7 
o 
16 
Adult forms. 
3 
3 
Larvae. 
ZB 
Ratios Represented by Lines. 
1. Turdus migeatorius, Linn. COMMON ROBIN. Group I. Class b. 
The Robin is the largest and the most abundant of the Thrushes, as it is the 
most confiding and familiar. With us, it frequents, by preference, agricultural 
districts, and is especially attracted to towns and villages and to the suburbs, 
parks and cemeteries of large cities. Not less than a hundred pairs of Robins 
reared their young, in 1878, within the city limits of Ithaca, N. Y. 
In its method of obtaining food, and in the situation from which its food is 
gleaned, the Robin performs a very important work, and one for which few 
other birds are so well adapted. So important is this work that the quantity of 
small fruits which it consumes is but a stingy compensation for the services 
which it renders, and I know of no bird whose greater abundance is likely to 
prove of more service to the country. Its eminently terrestrial habits, its fond¬ 
ness for larvae of various kinds, and its ability to obtain those which are hidden 
beneath the turf, give it a usefulness in destroying cut-worms, in the larval 
state, which no other bird possesses in the same degree, and for this feature of 
its economy alone its greater abundance should be encouraged. 
Early in the morning and towards the close of the evening, the Robin may 
often be seen searching after cut-worms in lawns, pastures and meadows, and 
when thus engaged, it hops about apparently gazing more at distant objects 
than searching for something near at hand; then, suddenly, it commences 
tearing up the old grass and turf with its bill; and, in another instant, it stands 
triumphant with its wriggling prize in its bill, for it rarely digs in vain. I have 
seen a Robin capture, in this manner, five cut-worms in less than ten minutes; 
and five other birds, within view, were doing the same work. 
