480 
ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF OUR BIRDS. 
consequence the Bluebird is driven away when its nesting places are destroyed. 
But as Bluebirds accept so gladly the houses which are sometimes provided for 
them, I can see no reason why, if sufficient and suitable breeding places were put 
up, they might not in a few years become far more numerous than they are now; 
and I would earnestly recommend that our farmers generally should put up 
cheap bird-houses, or even small boxes provided with suitable openings, in con¬ 
venient places about their premises. Not one, simply, but several. Let them 
be put up in the trees which stand out in the fields and along the fences, so that 
the birds may be induced to live where their services are most needed. 
Of the twenty-seven birds examined, one had eaten two ants; two, three 
moths; four, seven caterpillars; one, two tiger beetles; one, a ground-beetle; 
sixteen, twenty-one grasshoppers; one, one cricket; and two, a spider each. One 
bird ate a few raspberries. 
Others record its food as follows: Principally insects, among which are large 
beetles and spiders. In the fall, berries of sour gum; in the w'inter, those of 
red cedar (Wils.). Numerous insects, among these, grasshoppers (Samuels). 
Beetles, caterpillars, spiders; in autumn, grasshoppers and various kinds of ripe 
fruits (Aud.). Multitudes of noxious insects; in autumn, cedar berries and wild 
cherries (De Kay). 
Prof. Forbes, after examining one hundred and eight stomachs of the Bluebird, 
finds them to contain, among noxious insects, twenty-six per cent, lepidoptera; 
three per cent, leaf-chafers, and twenty-one per cent, orthoptera, making a total 
of fifty per cent.; and among beneficial insects, three per cent, ichneumons; 
carabidae, seven per cent.; soldier-beetles, one per cent.; soldier-bugs, three per 
cent., and spiders, eight per cent.— making a total of twenty-two per cent. 
Seventy-eight per cent, consisted of insects, eight per cent, of spiders, and one 
per cent, of myriapods, making, with thirteen per cent, of vegetable food, the 
whole amount, 
Note.— fiftaZta arctica, Arctic Bluebird. A single specimen of this species is said to have been 
observed in a collection at Dubuque, Iowa, which was taken late in the fall, upon the east side of 
the Mississippi river, near that place. (Birds of Northeastern Illinois, p. 95, by E. W. Nelson.) 
Family SYLYIIDJE; Sylvias. 
Fia. 108. 
Goldkn oresTed Kinglet {Regulus aatrapa). After Baird, Brewer and Ridgway. 
