120 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION. 
and animals upon which the robin feeds. When the robin takes our 
cherries and other small fruits, we know that he does us an injury, 
When he destroys cut-worms and May beetles (Lachnosterna), he is a ben- 
efit to us, but when he feeds upon insects, the life history and economic 
relations of which are unknown or in dispute, the case becomes very 
different. I have followed the economic classification adopted by Prof, 
Forbes, who classes all food matters as beneficial, injurious or neutral. 
By the term neutral I would not be understood to affirm that there is any 
organism in this world whose life does not in some way affect us. It 
serves only as a measure of our ignorance, and indicates that the life his- 
tory of too many plants and animals is so incompletely known that we 
must provisionally class them as neutral, the knowledge failing us neces- 
sary to place them as positively injurious or beneficial. There is, how- 
ever, little danger that increase of knowledge on this point will seriously 
affect the proportions as tabulated in the following discussion. 
The robin usually winters in emall numbers in some parts of Ohio, 
but the great majority are migrant and reappear at the central part of the 
State during the last of February or the first of March. This year there 
was a large flock (about 100) on the Station grounds by March 5th. After 
this date there were two weeks of cold weather with considerable snow, 
during which time the robin fed almost exclusively upon the asparagus 
bed, the berries of which were still in good condition. The stomach ofa 
single robin shot at this time contained 60 seeds of asparagus. 
Apri .—Sixty robins were shot during this month, an average of two 
per day, and at least one every day, Sundays excepted. All the vegetable 
food contained in these stomachs consisted of two seeds of a grass 
(Elymus) and one akene of a Polygonum. These were probably taken in- 
cidentally in securing other food. The Carabid larvee found in stomachs 
during this month were no doubt taken from rotten wood. I found the 
same species in such places along with elaterid larve, and noticed robins 
digging with their beaks in the rotton wood and leaf mould. Having 
shot them under such conditions, I found carabid larve in a fresh state 
in their stomachs. About the middle of the month Agonod:rus pallipes 
was present in immense numbers. Species of Melanotus (adults of wire 
worms) could also be seen in considerable numbers flying or running on 
the ground, but these were evidently too active for the robin to secure 
very plentifully. The large percentage of Aphodius found in stomachs 
during April is explained by the fact that they (species of Aphodius) were 
very abundant in decaying turnips in the Station gardens. This genus 
furnishes several quite useful scavengers, though the most of them infest 
the droppings of cattle, etc. 
