330 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Dwight (1900) describes the first winter male as "above vinaceous 

 buff, brightest on nape, vinaceous cinnamon on rump flanks and wing 

 coverts streaked on head and back with sepia. Forehead, lateral 

 'horns', lores, auriculars and triangular breast patch black, veiled by 

 overlapping pale buff or pinkish feather tips. Wings deep sepia, 

 primaries much darker, edged with whitish, the rest of the wing 

 feathers edged with vinaceous cinnamon. Tail brownish black, the 

 outer rectrices edged with white, the middle pair paler, broadly edged 

 with pinkish Isabella color. Below, dull white, the chin, sides of the 

 head and forehead strongly suffused with lemon or canary yellow, 

 a buffy band across breast below the black patch, flecked with dusky 

 spots." 



The first winter female is similar but lacks the black forehead, 

 which is streaked instead, the breast patch is smaller, the back is 

 more streaked, and the colors are duller. The first nuptial plumage 

 is acquired by wear, with possibly some slight evidences of a pre- 

 nuptial molt; the wearing away of the light-colored feather tips 

 brings the black areas into clear prominence; and old and young 

 birds look much alike, though young birds usually show more dusky 

 streaking on the chest and flanks than adults. 



Adults have one complete postnuptial molt on their breeding 

 grounds, about August, and the nuptial plumage is acquired by wear, 

 as in the young birds. Adults in fall are quite similar to the young 

 at that season, the black areas being obscured by brownish tips, the 

 yellow areas deeper yellow, and the white of the under parts more 

 or less streaked with grayish brown. 



Food. — ^W. L. McAtee (1905) , in his paper on the relation of horned 

 larks to agriculture, publishes a long list of the vegetable food, mainly 

 seeds, and the animal food, mainly insects, eaten by these birds, most of 

 which does not apply to the northern horned lark. He has much to 

 say about the injurious effect of weeds on agriculture and the cost 

 to farmers in their control. Horned larks feed largely on seeds, per- 

 haps mainly weed seeds, and so do many other birds, but I have always 

 felt that the good that birds do in destroying weed seeds is a myth. 

 Nature is so prolific in the production and so effective in the distribu- 

 tion of the seeds of plants, that only an infinitesimal percentage of 

 those distributed can possibly find room to germinate; and no mat- 

 ter how many the birds pick up, there are always many times more 

 than enough to cover the ground with verdure in a remarkably short 

 time. Has any one ever known of a case where birds have kept even 

 one square yard of ground free from weeds by eating the seeds? I 

 certainly have not. Therefore, it seems to me that the eating of 

 weed seeds is a neutral rather than a beneficial factor in the economic 

 status of birds. 



