File:Annual report (1901) (14563515760).jpg

Identifier: annualreport891901021newy (find matches)
Title: Annual report
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: New York (State). Forest, Fish and Game Commission
Subjects: Forests and forestry Fisheries Game and game-birds
Publisher: (Albany, N.Y. : The Commission)
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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e trees as the titmice, but rather prefer smalltrees or shrubs, but still they are forest inhabitants, and are to be found wherelarge trees are the principal growth. In color they are decidedly more stylish thanthe titmice, in so far at least as their head dress goes, which consists of aparticularly jaunty cap of bright colored feathers, golden in one and ruby-coloredin the other — hence their two common names, the golden-crowned and the ruby-crowned. Their food is mostly composed of insects, with only a small percentage ofvegetable matter. An examination of several hundred of their stomachs showsthat the insects eaten are mostly small beetles, particularly weevils, ants, bugs(Hemiptera), and small caterpillars, with a few of other orders. The first threeof these, however, make up the great bulk of the food. In the case of the ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula), ants, with a few other Hymenoptera, amountto more than thirty-six per cent of the whole food of the year, and are an
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MOURNING WARBLER,Upper Figure Female, Lower Figure Male BIRDS AS CONSERVATORS OF THE FOREST. 259 important element in every month. Hemiptera constitute nearly thirty per cent of the food, and are composed mostly of plant-lice and scales, which are eaten at all times when they can be found, and the scales can be obtained in every month,as they pass the winter on the bark in a dormant state, or in the shape of eggs.Beetles are eaten to the extent of eighteen per cent of the food, and are nearly all injurious species. All of the above insects are of the smaller species, such as larger birds are apt to pass by, yet some of the worst enemies of forest trees are found in these minute creatures. As a sample of what one of these little birds can do in the way of devouring insects, the following account of a stomach contents of Regulus calendula may serve. The principal item consisted of the remains of something over 100 small beetles, Notoxus alamedae, with several others of the genus Anthicus, a few

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