weevil, rice weevil, cowpea curculio, white-pine weevil, and bill bugs. The latter alone constitute more than 2 per cent of the whole food. The alfalfa weevil, a new and destructive pest, is relished by the killdeer, 41 being found in a single stomach. Other destructive beetles devoured are white grubs and their adult forms, the May beetles; wireworms and their imagos, the click beetles; larvæ of the genus Ligyrus, which attack sugar cane, corn, and carrots; brownfruit beetles, which

injure apples and corn; the grapevine leaf-beetle; southern corn-leaf beetle; two-striped tortoise beetle, which injures sweet potatoes; and a flea beetle which attacks tobacco and sugar beets.

Cicadas, buffalo tree hoppers, and negro bugs, the last named injuring parsley and raspberries, are some of

the true bugs relished by the killdeer. Caterpillars are a favorite article of diet, and several very injurious species are eaten, as the cotton worm, cotton cutworm, other cutworms, and caterpillars of the genus Phlegethontius, which damage

tomatoes and tobacco. Grasshoppers and crickets, including mole crickets, are a staple food. Two-winged flies or Diptera furnish 11.91 per cent of the food of the killdeer. Such pests as crane flies and their larvæ, known as leatherjackets, are eaten, as well as horseflies and mosquitoes and their larvæ. One stomach contained hundreds of larvæ of the salt marsh mosquito (Aëdes sollicitans), which is one of the most troublesome of the biting species. The State of

New Jersey has spent thousands of dollars in trying to reduce the numbers of this pest. The killdeer thus befriends man, but it does something also for the domestic animals, not only by eating horseflies and mosquitoes, as just mentioned, but also by preying upon ticks, including the American fever or cattle tick, which has caused such enormous losses in some parts of the South.

Crawfish, well-known pests in levees, and even in corn, cotton, and other fields in certain localities, are another item of the killdeer's food, and 3.62 per cent of the subsistence of the 228 birds examined was composed of worms of the genus Nereis, which prey upon oysters.

In all, 97.72 per cent of the killdeer's food is composed of insects and other animal matter. The bird preys upon many of the worst crop pests and is a valuable economic factor. There can be no logical reason for continuing to regard it as a game bird.-W. L. M.

HORNED GREBE.

(Colymbus auritus.)

Grebes are among the most interesting of water birds. Their power of diving as quick as a flash or of sinking beneath the surface without leaving a ripple has earned for them such names as hell-diver, sprite, and water witch. Grebes are not only accomplished divers, but swim well under water for long distances-not exclusively by aid of the feet, however, as is often stated. The writer has more than once seen the pied-bill grebe using its wings in underwater progression. Grebes have difficulty in rising from the water, but fly well when under way. When alighting they strike the water with a splash, gliding some distance on the breast. The nests are built of water-soaked vegetation, a portion of which is used to cover the eggs in the absence of the parents.

To illustrate the food habits of grebes, the horned grebe (fig. 7) is chosen. This species has a circumpolar range. In North America it breeds from the northern tier of the United States northward, and winters from the southern boundary of the breeding range south to Florida and California. The most remarkable point about the food habits of grebes is that the stomachs almost invariably contain a considerable mass of feathers. Feathers are fed to the young, and there is no question that they play some essential though unknown part in the digestive economy. As they are finely ground in the gizzards it is probable that finally they are digested and the available nutriment assimilated. Feathers constituted practically 66 per cent of the contents of the 57 horned grebe stomachs examined. However, it is not likely that they furnish a very large percentage of the nourishment needed by the birds. As the nutritive value of the feathers is unknown, this part of the stomach contents is ignored.

The other items of food are assigned 100 per cent, and the percentages are given on that basis. Various beetles, chiefly aquatic, compose 23.3 per cent of the food; other insects (including aquatic bugs, caddis and chironomid larvæ, dragon-fly nymphs, etc.), nearly 12 per cent; fishes, 27.8 per cent; crawfish, 20.7 per cent; and other crustacea, 13.8 per cent. A little other animal matter is taken, including snails and spiders, and a small quantity of vegetable food was found in two stomachs.

It has been claimed that grebes live exclusively on fishes and do mischief in fish hatcheries. The results obtained by stomach examinations show that they do not depend wholly or even chiefly upon

fish. On the contrary, they eat a large number of crawfishes, which often severely damage crops, and consume numbers of aquatic insects which devour small fishes and the food of such fishes.-W. L. M.

FRANKLIN'S GULL.

(Larus franklini.)

The term "gull" usually suggests a vision of dashing spray or farextending beaches with reedy bays and outreaching points of sand or islets on which the birds rest to preen their feathers after their long flights, and where perchance they make their nests and rear their young. The species under consideration (fig. 8), however, spends little time on the seacoast but is an inhabitant of farinland prairies and broad reaches of marsh land, where it lives and breeds during the warm season. In winter it retires southward, but lingers long enough in some of the Southern States to be of material

assistance to agriculture. Its center of abundance in North America during the breeding season is west of the Mississippi River and north of Iowa, east of the Rocky Mountains, but it is known to breed to some extent both south and east of these limits. The marshy lakes of this region afford ideal nesting sites for the species, while the adjoining broad stretches of prairie land yield an abundance of their favorite food. A few decades ago these birds occupied this vast region undisturbed, but to-day the plow is turning up the sod and the mower cutting the grass of the boundless fields over which for centuries they have foraged. With the advent of agricultural operations some changes harmful to the birds must necessarily take place, but it behooves the tillers of the soil to leave the gulls unmolested as far as possible, for where they abound they are a most potent

factor in the reduction of insect life. They do not by any means confine themselves to marshes when seeking for food, but fly over the dry prairie and even visit cultivated fields, looking for grubs, grasshoppers, and other insects. When unmolested they become quite fearless and follow the plowman to gather the grubs and worms from the newly turned furrows.

In an investigation of the food of Franklin's gull 93 stomachs were examined. Nearly all were taken from their breeding grounds and in the breeding season. Unfortunately none were secured during July, which is probably the very height of the reproductive period.

Of the whole food 94.46 per cent consisted of animal matter and 5.54 per cent of vegetable. Of the latter nearly all was of no significance, probably being taken accidentally, except the contents of

2 stomachs collected in May in North Dakota. About 75 per cent of the contents of each of these consisted of wheat probably gathered from newly sown fields. This was the only vegetable food found in any stomach that was of the least economic value.

Of the animal food the most important item is grasshoppers. These amount to 43.43 per cent of the food of the season, and in September and October constitute over four-fifths of the whole diet. As

an example of the number these birds can eat at a single meal, the following may be cited. Stomach A contained 70 entire grasshoppers and jaws of 56 more, with remains of 3 crickets. Stomach B contained 20 beetles, 66 crickets, 34 grasshoppers, and 3 other insects. Stomach C contained 90 whole grasshoppers, the jaws of 52 more, with 8 crickets, 1 bug, and 1 caterpillar. Stomach D contained 82 beetles, 87 bugs, 984 ants, 1 cricket, 1 grasshopper, and 2 spiders, or 1,157 insects in all. Stomach E was filled with 327 nymphs of dragon flies. Several other stomachs were completely filled with grasshoppers and crickets, too far advanced in digestion to be counted. Adults and larvæ (grubs) of May beetles were also a large component of the food and these were probably taken upon cultivated ground. Stomachs collected in Louisiana during the fall migration contained in addition to grasshoppers and beetles large numbers of true bugs (Hemiptera), including several species which are injurious to cotton, tobacco, and squashes. From this brief statement of the food of Franklin's gull, farmers will readily perceive that these birds are very desirable neighbors and will do all in their power to protect them.

There are several other species of gulls and terns that, like Franklin's, take up their residence about the lakes and marshes in the interior of the country. Their food habits, as far as known, are all beneficial to the farmer. They are great eaters of grasshoppers and have been seen catching those insects on the wing and also may often be seen following the plow in search of the grubs and beetles turned up. Among these are the California gull (Larus californicus), the ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis), and the black tern (Hydrochelidon nigra surinamensis). The latter lives and breeds about marshes where there is often little or no open water.

An illustration of the value of gulls as insect destroyers is furnished by the experience of the Mormons when they settled in Utah and raised their first crops of grain. This is graphically described by Hon. Geo. A. Cannon, temporary chairman of the Third Irrigation Congress:

Black crickets came down by millions and destroyed our grain crops; promising fields of wheat in the morning were in the evening as smooth as a man's hand-devoured by the crickets. At this juncture sea gulls [California gulls] came by hundreds and thousands, and before the crops were entirely destroyed these gulls devoured the