6 
FARMERS ’ BULLETIN 755 . 
Curious as may be the nesting habits of this little creature, his chief interest to the 
farmer and gardener centers about his tastes in the matter of food. He aspires to a 
large family; six to a brood is his favorite number, and this he likes to duplicate once 
or twice in the course of the summer; of course so many mouths to be filled require 
great activity on the part of the head of the family, but the wren is fully equal to the 
task and his brood never suffers from hunger. He is an industrious forager, search¬ 
ing every tree, shrub, and vine for caterpillars and examining every post and rail 
of the fence and every cranny in the Avail for insects and spiders. 
The wren is found all oAmr the United States east of the Great Plains in summer 
and it Avinters in the Southern States. 
For the purpose of this paper the food of 68 birds Avas examined and found to consist 
entirely of animal matter (mostly insects). The largest four items, taken in the order 
of their size, are bugs, 
grasshoppers and their 
allies, caterpillars, and 
beetles. Beetles collec- 
tHely constitute 13.81 
per cent of the food. 
Of these, the predacious 
ground beetles and a 
number of “ladybugs” 
(3.03 per cent) are prac¬ 
tically the only useful 
insects eaten by the 
wren. Snout b eetl es, 
or weevils (4.93 per cent), 
are eaten in every month 
of the Avren’s stay in the 
South. Other beetles 
(5.85 per cent) are largely 
of the leaf-beetle family, 
to which belong some 
of the greatest pests in 
the insect world. 
Moths and caterpillars reach very nearly the same percentage as beetles. The 
former are eaten to the extent of 13.9 per cent, but many are adult insects instead- 
of caterpillars. The wren seems to have a decided taste for these fuzzy creatures. 
Grasshoppers and their kin—crickets, locusts, etc.—were represented in the food 
of every month in goodly numbers, the aggregate being 17.61 per cent. The greatest 
consumption occurred in January (31.2 per cent) and November (31 per cent); the 
smallest, a mere trifle, in April. The largest item in the food is made up of bugs (29.34 
per cent), chiefly stinkbugs, a few negro bugs, and some leafhoppers; but a good 
many more are those slim-bodied, long-legged, sloAv-moAdng creatures that may be 
found straddling over the herbage about pools or wet places and over bushes. The 
thread-legged bugs and marsh treaders are examples. As these creatures have no great 
economic significance, so far as known, the Avren does neither good nor harm in eating 
them. The stinkbugs, negro bugs, and tree-hoppers and leafhoppers are harmful 
insects, and in eating them and feeding them to its young the Avren is an aid to the 
agriculturist. 
Ants are eaten to the extent of 8.2 per cent of the yearly food, and in March con¬ 
stitute 22.67 per cent. Bees and Avasps amount to 3.27 per cent. Flies, a mere trifle 
in the food of the wren, are eA'idently left to the more fleet flycatchers and SAvallows. 
Fig. 2.—House wren. Length, about 5 inches. 
B2I 42—67 
