United States Department of Agriculture
Bulletin No. 619
March 8, 1918
Source
http://books.google.com/books?id=bB4lAQAAMAAJ&dq=0CD8Q6AEwAQ&pg=RA1-PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false
Food Habits of the Swallows, a family
of Valuable Native Birds.
By F. E. L. Beal, Assistant Biologist
(Prof. Beal, the most experienced economic
Ornithologist in the country, died on October 1, 1916,
shortly after the preparation of this paper.)
Page 3
Purple Martin
Progm 8ubie
The purple martin occurs in nearly all parts of the
United States where suitable nesting sites are found.
As its nest is usually in a cranny of a building or in
a house put up for its express use, it follows that the
bird breeds chiefly in settled portions of the country.
Probably at one time it nested in holes in cliffs, but
that time is long past, and now, showing the greatest
confidence in its human neighbors, the bird builds
its nest as readily in the midst of a noisy city as about
a country cottage or on a quiet farm.
For the determination of the food of the martin 205
stomachs were available, collected throughout the
United States with a few from Canada. They represent
the months from February to September, inclusive, and
are fairly well distributed through that period. Examination
shows that the food consists entirely of animal matter,
insects with a few spiders and other allied creatures,
with no trace of vegetable food. The largest item consists
of Hymenoptera (23 per cent). These were found in 129
stomachs, of which 7 contained no other food. Ants
(3.52 per cent) were found in 30 of these and formed the
sole contents of 2. As many ants have no wings, they are
probably snapped from the tops of weeds as the martin
darts past. Occasionally, however, the bird had evidently
met a swarm of winged ants and made nearly a full meal
of them. Among the Hymenoptera were some useful
parasitic species. Ants, on the contrary, are annoying if
not harmful, so that while the bird's consumption of
Hymenoptera is on the whole not a decidedly good
function, it certainly results in little or no harm. Five
stomachs contained remains of honey bees (Apis
mellifera) with an aggregate of 11 individuals, all of
them males, or drones.
Diptera, found in 50 stomachs and forming the sole
contents of 7, stand next in the food of the martin.
Eaten in every month in which stomachs were taken,
they amount to 16.09 per cent of the food. They
consisted largely of the long-legged tipulids, better
known as daddy longlegs, whose larvae are destructive
to the roots of grass. Besides these, many of the
Muscidae, the family of the common house fly, were
eaten, and a few specimens of robberflies (Asilidae)
were found.' The latter are predacious insects and
are said to be very destructive to bees.
From the files of:
Historical Honeybee Articles
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/
Best Wishes
Joe Waggle
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm
|