Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer 27 
wood and Virginia creeper and seeds of poison ivy, sumac, and a few other 
shrubs. The flicker also eats a great many small fruits and the seeds of a con- 
siderable number of shrubs and weeds. None of the three species is much 
given to eating cultivated fruits or croos. The red-head has been accused of 
eating the larger kinds of fruit, as apples, and also of taking considerable corn. 
Stomach examinations show that to some extent these charges are substan¬ 
tiated, but that the habit is not prevalent enough to cause much damage. The 
bird is fond of mast, especially beechnuts, and when these nuts are plentiful it 
remains north all winter. 
Woodpeckers apparently are the only agents which can successfully cope with 
certain insect enemies of the forest, and, to some extent, with those of fruit 
trees also. For this reason, if for no other, they should be protected in every 
possible way. 
THE CUCKOOS 
Two species of cuckoos are common in the United States east of the Great 
Plains, the yellow-billed cuckoo 01 (fig. 23) and the black-billed cuckoo,' 83 and in 
the West a relative of the yellow-bill, the California cuckoo, 83 ranges from 
Colorado and Texas to the Pacific coast. While the two species are quite dis¬ 
tinct, the food habits of the yellow-bill and the black-bill do not greatly differ 
and their economic status is practically the same. 
Examination of 155 stomachs has shown that these species are much given 
to eating caterpillars, and, unlike most birds, do not reject those covered with 
hair. In fact, cuckoos eat so 
many hairy caterpillars that the 
hairs pierce the inner lining of 
the stomach and remain there, 
and often when the stomach is 
opened it appears to be lined 
with a thin coating of fur. 
An examination of the stom¬ 
achs of 46 black-billed cuckoos, 
taken during the summer months, 
showed the remains of 906 cat¬ 
erpillars, 44 beetles, 96 grass¬ 
hoppers, 100 sawflies, 30 stink- 
bugs, and 15 spiders. In all 
probability more individuals 
than these were represented, but 
their remains were too badly 
broken for recognition. Most of 
the caterpillars were hairy, and 
many of them belong to a genus that lives in colonies and feeds on the leaves of 
trees, including the apple tree. One stomach was filled with larvae of a cater¬ 
pillar belonging to the same genus as the tent caterpillar, and possibly to that 
species. Other larvae were those of large moths, for which the bird seems to 
have a special fondness. The beetles were for the most part click beetles and 
weevils, as well as a few May beetles. The sawflies were contained in two 
stomachs, one of which held no less than 60 in the larval stage. 
Of the yellow-billed cuckoo, 109 stomachs (collected from May to October) 
were examined. They contained 1,865 caterpillars, 93 beetles, 242 grasshoppers, 
37 sawflies, 69 bugs, 6 flies, and 86 spiders. As in the case of the black-billed 
cuckoo, most of the caterpillars belonged to hairy species and many of them 
were of large size. One stomach contained 250 American tent caterpillars: 
another 217 fall webworms. The beetles were distributed among several fami¬ 
lies, all more or less harmful to agriculture. In the same stomach which con¬ 
tained the tent caterpillars were 2 Colorado potato beetles; in another were 
3 goldsmith beetles, and remains of several other large beetles. Besides the 
ordinary grasshoppers were Severn 1 katydids and tree crickets. The sawflies 
were in the larval stage, in w r hich they resemble caterpillars so closely that 
they are commonly called false caterpillars by entomologists. The bugs con¬ 
sisted of stinkbugs and cicadas, or dog-day harvest flies, with the single excep¬ 
tion of one wheel bug, which was the only useful insect eaten. 
01 Coccyzus omerioanus. 82 Coccyzus cry thr opt lwlm us . 
83 Coccyzus ainericanus occidental is. 
Fig. 23.—Yellow-billed cuckoo. Length, about 
12 inches. 
