1914] Bryant: Economic Status of the Western Meadoivlark 409 



duration of their depredations to less than two weeks, and conse- 

 quently minimizes the amount of destruction possible. Deep 

 planting and drilling as against broadcasting are important as 

 measures for protecting crops. 



2. Damage to other cereals, such as corn and maize, and to 

 fruit is negligible. 



3. Investigation of complaints that meadowlarks are destruc- 

 tive to melons has shown that damage caused in this way has 

 been exaggerated. Melon growers, although claiming that the 

 birds cause considerable damage, have often been unable to 

 demonstrate the actual damage in the field. 



4. Censuses have demonstrated that the western meadowlark 

 prefers grass land to cultivated land, nearly forty per cent more 

 birds being found in the former. 



EXPERIMENTATION ON CAPTIVE BIRDS 



Experimentation on captive birds as a means of determining 

 food preference has been suggested by Forbes (1903) and Judd 

 (1901). No doubt such experimentation furnishes considerable 

 evidence as to the food preference of the bird if carried on with 

 proper controls. Thus far this sort of experimentation has not 

 furnished dependable generalization as to what the bird would 

 have taken under natural conditions (McAtee, 1912). This does 

 not mean that better devised and controlled experiments would 

 not furnish dependable evidence. 



The difficulty of keeping in cages birds with the temperament 

 of the western meadowlark and the difficulty of procuring for 

 them proper food has prevented the use of feeding experiments 

 in this investigation. 



In order properly to estimate the quantity of food consumed 

 daily it has been necessary to determine the time of digestion. 

 It was in this determination, and in the determination of the 

 quantity of food, that experiments on captive birds became of 

 value. 



There are four methods of determining the quantity of food 

 required by young birds. First, the quantity of food carried 



