Common Birds on the Farm. 



275 



They began feeding their young before 6 o'clock in the morning and 

 continued until about 8 in the evening. Through my field glasses I 

 determined the fact, for the birds often alighted near me, that they 

 sometimes carried two or three insects or worms at once. I watched them 

 for hours on different days and, keeping careful record, found that one 

 parent averaged a trip to the nest with food every ten minutes and 

 the other bird averaged one every two and one-half juimdes. If they 

 did this during the entire fourteen days the young were in the nest, 

 counting that they carried only one article of food each trip, it would 

 mean that the young were fed 6,880 worms and soft-bodied insects be- 

 fore they ever left the nest. Doubtless 50,000 or 75,000 insects were 

 destroyed by that one Thrasher family the summer of 1902 



MEADOW LARK {Stur7iella magna). 



Upper plumage brownish, with dark-streaked, pale-edge feathers ; outer tail feath- 

 ers with much white ; a light yellowish line from the bill down the top of the head and 

 a similar stripe over the eye ; a dark line behind the eye ; yellow below with a large 

 black crescent on breast; sides lighter with prolonged black spot. Winter plumage: 

 feathers of black more widely margined with brown, giving a suggestion that brown 

 is the prevailing color; the yellow of the plumage duller; length, 10% Inches. 



Range. — Eastern North America; breeds from the Gulf of Mexico to New Bruns- 

 wick. 



Nest. — Of grasses, usually arched over; located on the ground, often beneath a 

 bunch of grass or small pine sapling. 



Meadow Lark. 

 (After Beal, Farmers' Bulletin No. oJ,, Office of Experiment Stations, U. S. Department 



of Agriculture.) 



The Meadow Lark, or Old Field Lark, or, as it is often called, 

 "Fee Lark," is a familiar acquaintance of virtually every farm boy 

 in the state. Its loud, clear call in the spring is known to all whose 

 business or pleasure takes them to the fields. Its clear, far-reaching 

 whistle of ''laziness will kill you," is enough to arouse in the mind of 



