SOME COMMON BIRDS USEFUL TO THE FARMER. 27 
given to eating cultivated fruits or crops. 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 1 (fig. 23) and the black-billed cuckoo, 2 and in 
the West a relative of the yellow-bill, the California cuckoo, 3 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 cater¬ 
pillars that the hairs pierce the 
inner lining of the stomach and 
remain there, so that 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 cater¬ 
pillars, 44 beetles, 96 grasshop¬ 
pers, 100 sawflies, 30 stinkbugs, 
and 15 spiders. In all prob¬ 
ability 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 caterpillar belonging to the 
same genus as the tent caterpillar, and possibly to that species. Other larvae 
jwere 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, including 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 several katydids and tree crickets. The sawflies 
j were in the larval stage, in which 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. 
1 Coccyzus americanus. 2 Coccpzus erytliroptlialmus. 
3 Coccyzus americanus occidentalis. 
Fig. 23.— Yellow-billed cuckoo. Length, about 
12 inches. 
WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1915 
