damage due to its consumption of grain. The destruction that it sometimes causes must be attributed entirely to its too great abundance in some localities.

The following table shows the various elements of its food for each month:

Food of the red-winged blackbird.

[NUMBER OF STOMACHS EXAMINED: January, 11; February, 48; March, 84; April, 104; May, 75; June, 158; July, 141; August, 151; September, 56; October, 91; November, 82; December, 82; total, 1,083.]

Snout-beetles.

Other beetles..

0.1

ANIMAL.

Predaceous beetl's'.

Per

Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Per- Percent. cent. cent. cent. cent. cent. cent. cent. cent. cent. 0.2 3.1 2.7 6.5 6.5 1.3 0.8 6.4 7.2 22.4 2.2 1.2 7.8

cent. cent. cent.

6.5 1.9 1.5

0.3

0.1

0.4 2.5

7.8

2.5

0.2

0.4

1 Tr.

0.7

4.1

The California red-winged blackbird is confined to the Pacific coast region west of the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada, and ranges from Washington to Lower California. The stomachs upon which this investigation is based, 61 in all, were collected in California at different times of the year, but none in February, May, or August (see p. 74). Although this number is entirely too small to give data that can be considered final, it is thought best to publish those obtained, as they will give some insight into the character of the food.

Of the total food, only 1.6 percent is animal matter, and the remainder, 98.4 percent, is mostly grain. The animal food consists of beetles, ants, grasshoppers, bugs, caterpillars, and a few spidersmostly harmful, but so few in number that they are economically insignificant. Of the 98.4 percent of vegetable food, 85.5 percent consists of grain. This is made up of wheat, 28.9 percent; oats, 52.3 percent; and barley, 4.3 percent. Corn was not found. It is probable that this record would be somewhat modified by an examination of a larger series of stomachs representing every month of the year, but it must be remembered that one of the missing months is February, a month when birds feed to a great extent upon vegetable food, and another is August, which is a harvest month. The other vegetable food (12.9 percent) consists mostly of the seeds of noxious weeds.

Further field observation of the habits of this species is needed, but it is probable that the bird does great damage in places where it is abundant, especially in grain-growing sections. In view of the very large percentage of grain in the stomachs, and the fact that grain forms more than half the food in every month, it does not seem probable that the bird is able to supply its wants from the waste grain of the fields and corrals. Even if 50 percent were so obtained, a large percentage, more than 40 percent, of the total food still remains to the discredit of the species. Further investigation is necessary before final conclusions can be drawn, but it hardly seems probable that it can show the California redwing in any other light than that of a source of danger to grain.

THE RUSTY BLACKBIRD.

(Scolecophagus carolinus.)

One of the most familiar sights to the New England schoolboy, and one which assures him that spring is really at hand, is a tree full of blackbirds, all facing the same way and each one singing at the top of its voice. These are rusty blackbirds, or rusty grackles, which, on their spring journey to the north, have a way of beguiling the tedium of their long flight by stopping and giving free concerts. Every farmhouse by the wayside will have its visitors, and every boy who hears them is eager to tell his mates that he has seen the first flock of blackbirds. They breed in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, the northern parts of New England, New York, and Minnesota and northwestward nearly to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and Kotzebue Sound, Alaska; and spend the winter in the Southern States. as far west as Texas and as far north as southern Illinois. In their migrations they are seen in immense numbers, especially in the Mississippi Valley.

The great majority of these birds nest so far north that they are beyond the limits of cultivation, and consequently have no economic interest during the breeding months. But as soon as the season of reproduction is over they begin to assemble and move southward, and it is evident that such vast flocks as they form might prove a serious menace to any crop on which they chose to prey. Reports, however, have not implicated them to any great degree in the devastation of grainfields, and it seems to be their habit to feed about swamps and in roads and stock yards. That they have a decided taste for foraging in wet ground or about water is shown by the contents of their stomachs, which included aquatic beetles of many species, with larvæ of ephemerida, caddice-fly cases, a few dragon-flies, small snails and other mollusks, salamanders, and small fishes.

The food of rusty blackbirds does not seem to have received much attention, but a few ornithologists have given it brief consideration. Mr. C. J. Maynard reports that he has never found anything in their stomachs except insects and small mollusks.'

Col. N. S. Goss says:

They are largely omnivorous in their food habits, preferring the various forms of insect life, snails, etc., that abound in the aquatic grasses; but during the winter months, when forced to feed largely upon grains and seeds, they frequent the cattle yards and corn fields, and further south forage off the rice plantations.2

Dr. Warren says:

The food of this species consists largely of beetles, grasshoppers, snails and earthworms. They feed to a considerable extent on the seeds of various plants; different kinds of small berries are added to their menu; the scattered grains of wheat, rye or other cereals, which are to be found in the fields and meadows, are likewise eaten. When in cornfields they sometimes perch on the shocks and pick from the ears a few grains, the damage, however, which they do in this way is of but little importance.3

The investigation of the food of the rusty blackbird made by the Biological Survey is based on 132 stomachs, obtained from 16 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (see p. 74). These stomachs. represent every month of the year except June and July, when the birds are on their breeding range away from well-settled portions of the country. It is to be regretted that none of the months except March, April, October, and November are fairly represented. Few stomachs were obtained in the other months, January having but one to its credit.

The stomachs contained a larger proportion of animal matter (53 percent) than those of any other species of American blackbirds except the bobolink. This is the more remarkable in view of the fact that none were taken in the two breeding months of June and July, when in all probability the food consists almost exclusively of animal matter.

1 Birds Eastern N. A., p. 147, 1881.

2 Hist. Birds of Kansas, p. 408, 1891.

3 Birds of Pa., revised ed., p. 219, 1890.

While the birds are decidedly terrestrial in their feeding habits, they do not eat many predaceous ground-beetles (Carabida), the total consumption of these insects amounting to only 1.7 percent of the whole food. Scarabæids, the May-beetle family, form 2 percent, and in April 11.7 percent. Various other families of beetles aggregate 10.1 percent, largely aquatic beetles and their larvae, which, so far as known, do not have any great economic importance. A few of the destructive snout-beetles (Rhynchophora) are also included, as well as some chrysomelids and others.

Caterpillars constitute 2.5 percent and do not form any very striking percentage at any time, except, perhaps, in May, when they amount to 11.7 percent. Grasshoppers nearly equal beetles in the extent to which they are eaten, and exceed every other order of insects, although none appeared in the stomachs taken in January, March, May, and December, and in February but a trace. In August, as usual, they reach the maximum, 44.3 percent, only a trifle higher, however, than the October record. The average for the year is 12 percent. Various orders of insects, such as ants, a few bugs, and also a few flies, with such aquatic species as dragon-flies, caddice-flies, and ephemerids were eaten in all the months except January, in which only one stomach was taken. They aggregate 13.7 percent of the whole food, but owing to the number of forms no one amounts to a noteworthy percentage, and many of them are of little economic importance. Spiders and myriapods (thousand-legs) are eaten to the extent of 4 percent and amount to 23 percent in August. Other small animals, such as crustaceans, snails, salamanders, and small fish, were found in the stomachs for nearly every month, and amount to 7 percent of the food of the year, but none of them are important from an economic point of view. The vegetable food consists of grain, weed seed, and various miscellaneous substances, none of which amounts to any great percentage. The latter consist chiefly of a very small amount of fruit, a little mast, and a number of unidentifiable substances, probably picked up about water or in swamps. Of grain, corn is the favorite and amounts to 17.6 percent of the year's food. It constitutes 87 percent of the contents of the single stomach taken in January, but this record can not be used as a criterion, for with this exception the maximum percentage is 26.5 (average of 15 stomachs taken in November), while the stomachs collected in May, August, and September show not a trace of corn. The fact that corn constitutes respectively only 5 and 4 percent of the contents of the stomachs taken in December and February is additional evidence that the January percentage is exceptional. Wheat and oats collectively amount to only 6.8 percent of the year's food. Oats are apparently preferred and in March constitute 15.4 percent of the month's food. These March stomachs came from the Southern States, so it is probable that the grain was picked up on newly sown fields. Neither wheat nor oats were found in the stomachs taken in August. Grain collectively amounts to 24.4 percent of the

whole food, but from its distribution through the year does not appear to have been taken from the harvest fields. It is probable that some of it was gathered from newly sown fields, but the greater part was undoubtedly stolen from corneribs or picked up in roads and stock yards as waste grain.

Weed seed is not so important an item of food with the rusty blackbirds as it is with the redwings, since with the former it amounts to only 6 percent of the year's food, and contrary to observations on most seed-eating birds, the greater portion of it is apparently eaten in the insect season. Only 1 percent was found in the stomach taken in January, but the amount increases irregularly up to a maximum of 23.3 percent in May. Of June and July we know nothing, but in August, the month in which the redwing begins to increase its seed diet, there is not a single trace of weed seed in the food of the rusty blackbirds. It constitutes 6.6 percent in September, a trifle in October, and 15 percent in November and is entirely absent in the 3 stomachs taken in December. This erratic distribution evidently indicates that weed seed is not sought after, but is simply taken when nothing better is at hand. Miscellaneous items of vegetable food amount to 16.6 percent of the food of the year. Fruit was found in a few stomachs, but does not appear to any important extent. Only three kinds were determined, but several stomachs contained pulp or skin that could not be identified. Several buffalo berries (Shepherdia argentea) were found in one stomach, hackberries (Celtis occidentalis) in another, and seeds of blackberries or raspberries (Rubus) in two or three others. Mast was found in a few stomachs, but the greater part of the miscellaneous food was indeterminable. The birds are evidently great scavengers, and so gather much food that is scarcely susceptible of classification.

SUMMARY.

While this record of the food of the rusty blackbird is somewhat fragmentary it still gives a very good idea of the bird's general diet. One important conclusion that can be drawn is that animal food is preferred, vegetable food serving as a makeshift. It is nearly certain that in June and July, when the birds are engaged in the exhausting function of reproduction, the diet must be almost exclusively animal. If those months were represented in this investigation, the relative proportion of the two classes of food would be much changed, and animal food would take a higher rank. The vegetable food is of little consequence, as the birds show no decided predilection for any particular kind, but eat whatever is at hand when animal food can not be obtained. Grain is not eaten to any great extent at harvest time, and the other items do not seem to have any special relation to the season in which they are eaten. While considerable animal food beside insects is eaten, on the other hand a considerable quantity of harmful