Of all the sparrow groups, there is probably no member, unless it be the exotic form known as the English sparrow,[33] that has by reason of Its food habits called down so many maledictions upon Its head as the house finch,[34] red head, or linnet, as it is variously called. This bird, like the other members of its family, is by nature a seed eater, and before the beginning of fruit raising in California probably subsisted upon the seeds of weeds, with an occasional taste of some wild berry. Now, however, when orchards have extended throughout the length and breadth of the State and every month from May to December sees some ripening fruit, the linnets take their share. As their number Is legion, the sum total of the fruit that they destroy is more than the fruit raiser can well spare. As the bird has a stout beak, it has no difficulty in breaking the skin of the hardest fruit and feasting upon the pulp, thereby spoiling the fruit and giving weaker-billed birds a chance to sample and acquire a taste for what they might not otherwise have molested. Complaints against this bird have been many and loud, more especially in the years when fruit crops first came to be an important factor in the prosperity of the Pacific coast. At that time the various fruits afforded the linnets a new and easily obtained food, while cultivation had reduced their formerly abundant supply of weed seed. When the early fruit growers saw their expected golden harvest suddenly snatched away or at least much reduced in value by the little marauders, it is no wonder that they were exasperated and wished to destroy the authors of the mischief. [33] _Passer domesticus_. [34] _Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis_. In order to test the matter thoroughly and ascertain whether these birds ate any other kind of food that might to some extent offset the damage inflicted upon the fruit, the horticulturists and ornithologists of California were requested to secure a number of the stomachs of these birds and send them to the Biological Survey. An agent was also sent to the fruit-raising sections, who watched the birds in the orchards and collected a number of them. In this way 1,206 stomachs were obtained and carefully examined, and the result shows that animal food (insects) constituted 2.44 per cent and vegetable food 97.56 per cent of the stomach contents, not counting gravel.