ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF OUR BIRDS. 
499 
Table showing kinds and number of animals, mostly insects, eaten by American 
Warblers — continued. 
Number and Name op Speci¬ 
mens Examined. 
2 
8 
4 
6 
Of twenty-one Mary¬ 
land Yellow-throats 
examined. 
2 
21 
7 
1 
CUAS-SIFICATION 
OP Food. 
3 
Hymenoptera .... 
33 
Lepkloptera. 
7 
Diptera . 
16 
Beetles . 
7 
Hemiptera . 
2 
Grasshoppers .... 
6 
Dragon-flies. 
3 
Spiders . 
103 
Adult forms . .. . | 
33 
Larvae. I 
1 
2 
Grasshopper eggs 
• 1 
Ratios Represented by Lines. 
26. Miniotilta varia (Linn.), Vieill. BLACK-AND-WHITE CREEPING 
WARBLER. Group I. Class a. 
If this active little species was ever more closely united, in habits and struct¬ 
ure, to the wood tvarblers par excellence,'’' it has, probably, in some distant 
time, found with them so vigorous a competition as to oblige it to seek a living 
with a much smaller class of birds. Whatever may have been its habits in pre¬ 
vious ages, it is to our advantage that it has assumed the creeper-like life it leads. 
It is another of those birds which has learned that a large number of nocturnal 
insects court security by day in the crannied bark of trees, or resort there to 
undergo their transformations, and, like the Nuthatches and time Creepers, upon 
such forms it feeds. Sometimes it jiursues upon the wing moths which it has 
startled from their hiding places, and occasionally it searches for insects among 
the foliage of trees. 
The Black-and-white Creeper is a rather common summer resident, and it 
usually affects, during the breeding season, unpastured groves and woods, where 
it builds its nest upon the ground, depositing therein from three to seven eggs; 
fi-om these places, after the middle of July, it disperses over other woods and 
groves and often appears in orchards and about dwellings. It has been known 
to build its nest in the immediate vicinity of houses, and the fact bespeaks for 
it a growing familiarity and a greater usefulness. It is doubtful, however, ow¬ 
ing to its breeding habits, whether it can ever become abundant about dwellings 
during the breeding season, at least whei-e dogs and cats are allowed to live. 
These birds are often doomed to become the foster parents of the Covvbird, and 
no doubt their general abundance is greatly reduced on this account. Owing to 
the small size of these birds, they find it profitable to feed extensively upon veiy 
small insects. For tliis reason they are able to do a work for which the Nut¬ 
hatches and Woodpeckem are not so well fitted. It is. tlierefore, especiallj' de¬ 
sirable that they should attain a greater abundance witli us. 
Food: Of seventeen specimens examined, tliree had eaten five ants; two, 
twenty-one caterpillars, twenty of wliicli were small measuring-worms; tliree. 
