8 
FARMERS 7 BULLETIN 630. 
of the birds, but no corresponding gain in the supply of native fruits upon 
which they were accustomed to feed. Under these circumstances what is more 
natural than for the birds to turn to cultivated fruits for their food? The 
remedy is obvious: Cultivated fruits can be protected by the simple expedient 
of planting the wild species which are preferred by the birds. Some experiments 
with catbirds in captivity show that the Russian mulberry is preferred to any 
cultivated fruit. 
The stomachs of 645 catbirds were examined and found to contain 44 per 
cent of animal (insect) and 58 per cent of vegetable food. Ants, beetles, cater¬ 
pillars, and grasshoppers constitute tliree-fourths of the animal food, the re¬ 
mainder being made up of bugs, miscellaneous insects, and spiders. One-third 
of the vegetable food consists of cultivated fruits, or those which may be 
cultivated, as strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries; but while we debit 
the bird with the whole of this, it is probable—and in the eastern and well- 
wooded part of the country almost certain—that a large part is obtained from 
wild vines. The rest of the vegetable matter is mostly wild fruit, as 
cherries, dogwood, sour gum, elderberries, greenbrier, spiceberries, black alder, 
sumac, and poison ivy. Although the catbird sometimes does considerable 
harm by destroying small fruit, it can not on the whole be considered injurious. 
On the contrary, in most parts of 
the country it does far more good 
than harm. 
THE SWALLOWS. 
Seven common species of swal¬ 
lows are found within the limits of 
the United States, four of which 
have abandoned to some extent 
their primitive nesting habits and 
have attached themselves to the 
abodes of man. 
In the eastern part of the country 
the barn swallow 1 (fig. 7) now 
builds exclusively under roofs, hav¬ 
ing entirely abandoned the rock 
caves and cliffs in which it formerly 
nested. More recently the cliff 
sw r allow 2 has found a better nesting 
site under the eaves of buildings 
than was afforded by the overhang¬ 
ing cliffs of earth or stone which it 
once used and to which it still 
resorts occasionally in the East and 
habitually in the unsettled West. The martin 3 and the white-bellied, or tree, 
swallow 4 nest either in houses supplied for the purpose, in abandoned nests of 
woodpeckers, or in natural crannies in rocks. The northern violet-green swal¬ 
low. 5 6 the rough-wdnged swallow, 0 and the bank swallow 7 still live in practically 
such places as their ancestors chose. 
Field observation convinces an ordinarily attentive person that the food of 
swallows must consist of the smaller insects captured in mid-air or picked from 
the tops of tall grass or weeds. This observation is borne out by an examina¬ 
tion of stomachs, which shows that the food is made up of many small species 
of beetles which are much on the wing; many species of mosquitoes and their 
allies, together with large quantities of flying ants; and a few insects of similar 
kinds. Most of these are either injurious or annoying, and the numbers de¬ 
stroyed by swallows are not only beyond calculation but almost beyond imagi¬ 
nation. 
Unlike many other groups of birds, the six species of swallows found in the 
Eastern States extend in a practically unchanged form across the continent, 
where they are reinforced by the northern, or Pacific-coast, violet-green swallow. 
1 Hirundo erythrogastra. 
2 Petrochclidon lunijrons. 
3 Progne subis. 
* Iridoprocne bicolor. 
6 Tachycineta thalassina. 
0 Stelgidopteryx serripcnnis „ 
7 Riparia riparia. 
