383 



live kinds of birds in meadows, there were, in the northern section, 

 25 of them in pastures, in the central section 41, and in the southern 

 section 32. The cause of this apparent change in the preference of 

 the meadow-larks of central Illinois seems, therefore, something 

 peculiar to themselves, and is still to seek. 



Birds of the Pastures 



The birds of a given situation may be discussed from two quite 

 different standpoints, both interesting and pertinent, and both really 

 necessary to a complete understanding of the facts. We may con- 

 sider the members of an assemblage of species there with first ref- 

 erence to their relative importance to the situation itself — with ref- 

 erence, that is, to their comparative numbers, or to the nature and 

 effect of their activities; or we may consider the situation with first 

 reference to its relative importance in the economy and life of each 

 species of bird which inhabits or visits it. If this situation is wood- 

 land, for example, a bird found only in forests might, if a compara- 

 tively rare species, have very little importance — might produce very 

 little effect in the situation because of its infrequent occurrence there, 

 while to the species itself the forest situation would be all-important, 

 as the sole place of its habitation. Its own significance in forests 

 might be easily overbalanced by a very abundant species which should 

 visit woodlands only occasionally, but whose average numbers there 

 might be twice or thrice as large to the unit of area and time as 

 those of the less abundant species inhabiting forests exclusively. 

 Time will not permit me to illustrate this division of my topic from 

 both these points of view, and I will limit myself to a few words 

 in conclusion on the pasture birds as a group and on some of the 

 more prominent pasture species with reference to their importance 

 in pastures. 



Pasture lands were the preferred resort of our most abundant 

 midsummer birds. That is, more birds were seen in pastures than 

 in any other of the larger crop areas of the state^ — 2,107 i^i that 

 situation as against 1,814 i" meadows, 1,752 in fields of small grain, 

 and 1,169 in fields of corn. Indeed, 27.2 per cent, of all the mid- 

 summer birds determined by my observers were seen in pastures, 

 23.4 per cent, in meadows, 22.6 per cent, in small grain, and 15.1 

 per cent, in corn. The area in pastures was larger than that in 

 meadows, however, and on this account, if we consider the number 

 of birds per square mile, we must change this order of precedence. 

 With a general midsummer average of 645 birds to the s(iuare mile 



