Everything on this page except the headings is reprinted word for word from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers’ Bulletin 630, Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer — the 1915 printing and its 1926 revision, which read the same 1,236 robin stomachs and closed with two very different verdicts — cited in full at the end.

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The charge, as the government printed it in 1915

From the 1915 printing. — The robin, in many parts of the country one of the most cherished of our birds, is found throughout the States east of the Great Plains, and is represented farther west and south by slightly different subspecies. It breeds far north through Canada, and is found even in Alaska. Although the great bulk of the species leaves the Northern States in winter, a few individuals remain in sheltered swamps, where wild berries furnish abundant food.

The robin is an omnivorous feeder and its food habits have sometimes caused apprehension to the fruit grower, for it is fond of cherries and other small fruits, particularly the earlier varieties. For this reason many complaints have been lodged against the bird, and some persons have even gone so far as to condemn it. It is, however, far too valuable to be exterminated, and choice fruit can be readily protected from its depredations.

What 1,236 stomachs showed

Examinations of 1,236 stomachs show that 42 per cent of its food is animal matter, principally insects, while the remainder is made up largely of small fruits or berries. Over 16 per cent consists of beetles, about one-third of which are useful ground beetles, taken mostly in spring and fall when other insects are scarce.

Grasshoppers make up about 5 per cent of the whole food, but in August they comprise 17 per cent. Caterpillars form about 9 per cent, while the rest of the animal food, about 11 per cent, is made up of various insects, with a few spiders, snails, and angleworms. All the grasshoppers, caterpillars, and bugs, with a large portion of the beetles, are injurious, and it is safe to say that noxious insects comprise more than one-third of the robin’s food.

Vegetable food forms 58 per cent of the stomach contents, over 42 per cent being wild fruits and only a little more than 8 per cent being possibly cultivated varieties. Cultivated fruit amounting to about 25 per cent was found in the stomachs in June and July, but only a trifle in August. Wild fruit, on the contrary, is eaten every month and constitutes a staple food during half the year.

No less than 65 species of fruit were identified in the stomachs; of these, the most important were 4 species of dogwood, 3 of wild cherries, 3 of wild grapes, 4 of greenbrier, 2 of holly, 2 of elder; and cranberries, huckleberries, blueberries, barberries, service berries, hackberries, and persimmons; together with 4 species of sumac and various other seeds not strictly fruit.

Why cherries get hit first

The depredations of the robin seem to be confined to the smaller and earlier fruits, few, if any, complaints being made that it eats apples, peaches, pears, grapes, or even late cherries. By the time these are ripe the forests and hedges are teeming with wild fruits which the bird evidently finds more to its taste.

The cherry, unfortunately for man, ripens so early that it is almost the only fruit accessible at a time when the bird’s appetite has been sharpened by a long-continued diet of insects, earthworms, and dried berries, and it is no wonder that at first the rich juicy morsels are greedily eaten.

While the robin takes some cultivated fruits, it must be remembered that, being a natural enemy of the insect world, it has been working during the whole season to make that crop a possibility, and when the fruit ripens the robin already has a standing account with the farmer for services rendered, with the credits up to this time entirely on his side.

The cherry, unfortunately for man, ripens so early that it is almost the only fruit accessible at a time when the bird’s appetite has been sharpened by a long-continued diet of insects, earthworms, and dried berries, and it is no wonder that at first the rich juicy morsels are greedily eaten.

The 1915 verdict — and the planting trick

Since the robin takes ten times as much wild as cultivated fruit, it seems unwise to destroy the birds to save so little. Nor is this necessary, for with care both birds and fruit may be preserved. Where much fruit is grown it is no great loss to give up one tree to the birds, and in some cases the crop can be protected by scarecrows.

Where wild fruit is not abundant, a few fruit-bearing shrubs and vines judiciously planted will serve for ornament and provide food for the birds. The Russian mulberry is a vigorous grower and a profuse bearer, ripening at the same time as the cherry. So far as observation has gone, most birds seem to prefer its fruit to any other.

It is believed that a number of mulberry trees planted around the garden or orchard would fully protect the more valuable fruits.

Much has been written about the delicate discrimination of birds for choice fruit and their selection of only the finest and costliest varieties. This is contrary to observed facts. Birds, unlike human beings, seem to prefer fruit that, like the mulberry, is sweetly insipid, or that, like the chokecherry or holly, has some astringent or bitter quality.

The so-called black alder, a species of holly, has bright scarlet berries tasting as bitter as quinine, that ripen late in October and remain on the bushes through November. Though frost grapes, the fruit of the Virginia creeper, and several species of dogwood are abundant at the same time, the birds have been found to eat the berries of the holly to a considerable extent.

It is, moreover, a remarkable fact that the wild fruits upon which birds largely feed are those which man neither gathers for his own use nor adopts for cultivation.

The same opening paragraph, revised for 1926

From the 1926 printing. — The robin, in many parts of the country one of the most cherished of our birds, is found throughout the States east of the Great Plains, and is represented farther west and south by slightly different subspecies. It breeds far north through Canada, and is found even in Alaska. Although the great bulk of the species leaves the Northern States in winter, a few individuals remain in sheltered swamps, where wild berries furnish abundant food.

The robin is an omnivorous feeder and its food habits have sometimes caused apprehension to the fruit grower, for it is fond of cherries and other small fruits, particularly the earlier varieties. For this reason many complaints have been lodged against robins, and it has been necessary to permit the killing of the birds in some fruit-growing regions.

Where the robin’s food comes from

Same stomachs, two verdicts

Source

Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer, U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers’ Bulletin 630 (1915 edition), “The Robins.” Project Gutenberg #62696. Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer, Farmers’ Bulletin 630 (1926 revised edition), “The Robins.” Project Gutenberg #62678. Public domain. Project Gutenberg #62696 and #62678.

Passages reproduced verbatim, the body from the cleaner 1915 printing and the revised opening paragraph from the 1926 printing, labeled. Mechanical edits only: hard-wrapped lines rejoined; footnote markers ([5], [6], [7]) and their Latin-name footnotes removed; the illustration placeholder and its cross-reference “(fig. 2)” removed; italic underscores dropped. No other changes.