218 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
morning that I heard it from the border of one of those 
endless grain-fields that roll on to meet the sky like a 
glistening green sea with its waters stirred by the breeze. 
“The Meadowlark is certainly a thing of beauty, but, 
at the same time, its greater service to man is its usefulness ; 
not as a bit of meat, no matter how plump it may grow, 
but as the untiring guardian of the fields, where it spends 
its hfe and makes its nest home in a grass tussock. For 
this bird, of the eastern United States, is with us here in 
Southern New England, and southward, all the year, and 
those flocks that migrate do not leave until late fall, 
and are back again by the middle of March, while the 
Prairie Lark covers the western part of the country, as 
permanent warden of the meadow and hay-fields. All 
the year they keep at work; from March to December in- 
sect food is the chief part of the diet; insects that are the 
farmer’s bane, — grasshoppers, cutworms, sow-bugs, ticks, 
weevils, plant-lice, and the click beetle (the grown-up wire 
worm) being but a few of them. The remaining months, 
December, January, and February, insects failing, waste 
grain is eaten, and weed seeds, as pigeon grass, rag and 
smart weed, and black mustard. 
“Happily for us, this beautiful bird is protected in all 
the New England and Middle States, but, if we have 
friends who live in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, 
Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, Missouri and Idaho, 
where the Larks are only considered as food, let us beg them 
to tell every one of this and the Prairie Lark’s merits, so 
that they may be placed on the list of the protected. And 
when you hear any one say that the Meadowlark is by 
rights a game-bird, say as politely as may be, but very 
