THE WESTERN MEADOWLARK. = 67 
of the Shore-birds. Or, again, she may cling to her charge in desperation 
hoping against hope till the last possible moment and taking chances of final 
mishap. In this way a friend of mine once discovered a brooding Meadow- 
lark imprisoned underneath his boot—fortunately without damage for she 
occupied the deep depression of a cow-track. 
To further concealment the grass-lined depression in which the Meadow- 
lark places her four or five speckled eggs is almost invariably over-arched 
with dried grasses. This renders the eggs practically invisible from above, 
and especially if the nest is placed in thick grass or rank herbage, as is 
customary. ‘Touching instances of blind devotion to this arch tradition were, 
however, afforded by a sheep-swept pasture near Adrian. Here the salt-grass 
was cropped close and the very sage was gnawed to stubs. But the Meadow- 
larks, true to custom, had imported long, dried grasses with which to over- 
arch their nests. As a result one had only to look for knobs on the landscape. 
By eye alone we located six of these pathetic landmarks in the course of a 
half-hour’s stroll. 
One brood is usually brought off by May rst and another by the middle 
of June. Altho Meadowlarks are classed as altricial, 1. e. having young help- 
less when hatched and which require to be nurtured in the nest, the young 
Meadowlarks are actually very precocious and scatter from the nest four or 
five days after hatching, even before they are able to fairly stand erect. This 
arrangement lessens the chances of wholesale destruction but it would appear 
to complicate the problem from the parental standpoint. How would you, 
for instance, like to tend five babies, each in a separate thicket in a trackless 
forest, and that haunted by cougars, and lynxes, and boa-constrictors and 
things? 
We cannot afford to be indifferent spectators to this early struggle for 
existence, for it is difficult to overestimate the economic value of the Meadow- 
lark. The bird is by choice almost exclusively insectivorous. If, however, 
when hard pressed, he does take toll of the fallen wheat or alfalfa seed, he 
is as easily justifiable as is the hired man who consumes the farmer’s biscuits 
that he may have the strength to wield the hoe against the farmer’s weeds. 
Being provided with a long and sensitive bill, the Meadowlark not only 
gleans its insect prey from the surface of the ground, but works among the 
grass roots, and actually probes the earth in its search for wire- and cut- 
worms, those most dreaded pests. Besides devouring injurious grubs and 
insects of many kinds, the Lark has a great fondness for grasshoppers, sub- 
sisting almost entirely upon these in the season of their greatest abundance. 
In the matter of grasshopper consumption alone Meadowlarks of average 
distribution, are estimated by no less an authority than Professor Beal, to 
be worth about twenty-four dollars per month, per township, in saving the 
hay crop. To the individual farmer this may seem a small matter, but in 
