can find, potato and cucumber bugs, scale insects, strawberry root borers,
fig eaters, cotton boll weevils and other small insects that give trouble to the
farmer. With the sagacity of a dietitian the cardinal carefully removes any
hard bits that might harm the birdlings.[28]

No matter what location the cardinal inhabits their subsistence is
derived from insects, seeds, a very small amount of grain, and seeds from
wild fruit. The pulp of the latter he discards.[29] "Based on the examinations
of nearly 500 stomachs (McAltee, 1908) showed the food content to be
about 7/10 vegetable, and 3/10 animal matter. Of the Vegetable food,
weeds and other seeds compose the largest part-about 36 per cent; wild
fruit amounts to 24 per cent, and grain nearly 9 per cent."[30]

In vegetable food weed seed is the favorite. Bindweeds and smart-
weeds head the list, followed by buttonweed, chickweed, tumbleweed,
partridge pea, lamb's-quarters, sticktight, nail grass, sowthistle, crab and
yard grasses, plantain, dock, cockspur, dodder, burr, foxtail.[31]

Of the wild fruit seeds eaten by the cardinals, wild grape has the
preference but they also enjoy blackberries, cherries, hackberries, dog-
woods, smilax, blueberries, pokeberries, elderberries, and juneberries. Seeds
of palmettos, redhaw, prickly pear, holly, sumas, Mexican mulberry and the
passion flower are likewise consumed. Cultivated fruit apparently offers
very little attraction to these birds.[32]